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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28036368">Behind the Birch</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/loudle/pseuds/loudle'>loudle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Direction (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Enemies to Lovers, Historical References, M/M, Witch Harry Styles, Witchcraft, Witches</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:01:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28036368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/loudle/pseuds/loudle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the year 1692 in Salem Village. The pastor's son is easily distracted by sparkling things. There is a drifter in these woods.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The snow glittered under the late afternoon sun, crunching beneath the heels of Louis’s riding boots as he led Buttercup towards the stables. His cheeks were flushed from the bite of the crisp winter air clawing at his face, and his breath rose as clouds up towards the heavens with every exhale. His lungs burned from hours of inhaling the icy air, his throat aching from the cold. It was a pleasant ache, dull and thumping, serving as a reminder of his pleasant morning on the riding trail. Buttercup huffed, and Louis hummed in agreement. “I know. I don’t want to go home either,” he said to his trusted horse and confidante. “One day, we’ll set off for New York and never look back.” Buttercup was silent as she trotted along, and Louis thought that was her way of expressing her satisfaction with his answer.<br/>
Once inside the stables, Louis freed Buttercup from the saddle adorning her back, the leather bridle holding the bit in her mouth, and began to brush out her flowing mane. “I sometimes wonder if your hair is spun from pure gold,” he whispered to the horse. Her big black eye blinked, almost as if she were winking at him. “You cheeky mistress,” he teased his equine companion.<br/>
“My Lord, allow me,” said Stan, the servant who had served the Tomlinsons as long as Louis could remember.<br/>
“Stan, when will you finally call me by my Christian name?,” Louis asked in exasperation. The two had grown up together, being birthed less than one year apart. Stan’s mother, Stella, had been his family’s midwife and briefly their nanny once Louis was born. Within months of Louis’s mother becoming pregnant, Stella realized she, too, was with child. Rather than turning her away for her indecency as an unmarried woman falling pregnant by an unnamed gentleman, Louis’s mother showed her mercy. Louis’s father was disapproving, but behind every callous man is a woman who can take his wrath and multiply. Stella stayed. The compromise Johannah and Mark had come to on the subject was to keep Stella’s condition a secret from the townspeople of Salem Village. Mark Tomlinson was the town’s pastor, after all, and what kind of example would he be setting for his clergy and congregation by absolving his servant of her tartish behavior and subsequent fornication? Therefore, Stella was not allowed off the property as soon as she reached the third month of her pregnancy, no longer able to conceal the growing bump with her precious child growing inside. From all accounts (bar Louis’s father), Stella was a wonderful woman full of wisdom and light. Louis wished he could remember what he was sure was a kind face with twinkling hazel eyes much like her son’s. However, the poor do not have the luxury of having their portraits painted, and Stella had lost her life giving life to Stan. So, Stan had essentially been raised as Louis’s brother. They were treated as equals by Johannah, who never stopped to question the responsibility of raising Stan when Stella passed. His mother was simply that kind.<br/>
“When your father does not threaten me with 30 lashings for each offense of informality, My Lord,” Stan replied, taking the brush out of Louis’s hand and detangling Buttercup’s mane matted with ice and snow with much more practiced ease than Louis’s comparatively inexperienced and clumsy movements. It was when his own mother died of a quickly progressing illness of the lungs when they were just seven and eight years old that Louis’s father no longer had anyone to compromise with. Upon becoming a widower, Mark Tomlinson became the sole authority of their household. With that, no longer was Stan to be treated as a child of his, but demoted to servitude as was his “rightful place”, according to Mark. Obsessed with status and public perception, he could be downright tyrannical about these things. 30 lashings was not an exaggeration. If anything, it was a modest guess on Stan’s part if Louis’s father was in a foul enough mood. Louis rolled his eyes.<br/>
“I don’t see him in the stables with us,” he said, making a show of looking in every corner of the room. He stuck his head through the window, looking around outside. “I don’t see him about in the yard.” Stan ignored him, and Louis crossed his arms over his chest. “If my father is not present, you may call me Louis,” he insisted. Stan shook his head.<br/>
“Doing things even in secret builds habits,” he replied, never lifting his eyes from Buttercup’s now silky smooth mane. “The treat of friendly informality behind closed doors is not worth the skin I wear on my back.” He stood up from the stool he had been seated on, putting the brush in its appropriate receptacle. “I know you mean well, My Lord. I appreciate your steadfast vision that we are somehow equals. This dream you have, however, is nothing but that as long as your father is the head of this household.” He spoke so calmly, so easily, and Louis wondered if the other man’s social shackles felt heavier to him, the precious son of the pastor. If it were Stan being held under the water, why was it Louis who struggled to breathe? Or had Stan simply tired of fighting a battle not built for him to win and resigned himself to a life of petty labor? Louis’s heart ached at the thought. “Now, supper should be on the table shortly if it hasn’t been served already. It’s already half four. Where have you and Miss Buttercup been all day?,” Stan asked, walking alongside Louis towards the house.<br/>
“We may have taken a ride into Marblehead,” Louis replied, stopping in his tracks in waiting for Stan to open the front door for him.<br/>
“Louis,” Stan chided, shaking his head to signal his disapproval, “Master Mark will not be happy to hear about that. You are to go no further than the forest edge without your father’s permission.”<br/>
“And from whom would he hear the tale of my day’s adventures?,” Louis asked him. Stan lifted his jacket from his shoulders, patiently awaiting Louis to remove his arms from the sleeves. “Surely not my closest ally in this household.” Stan shot him a look that would have killed if simple rolls of the eyes had the power to do so.<br/>
“Surely not,” he begrudgingly agreed. Louis shook his arms out of his jacket. “But certainly you’re not foolish enough to think the pastor’s son has any anonymity within the radius of these woods. What if a member of your father’s loyal congregation saw you meandering into town like some kind of faithless waif?”<br/>
“I did not venture through the town square with a feather in my cap and a song in my heart,” Louis put his hands on his hips as Stan hung his coat on the hook for the maid to peruse for popped stitches and rough edges needing mending for his next venture into the winter landscape. “I barely crossed the county line into the outskirts of Marblehead, I was not banging cast iron pans in the village to alert the public of my arrival. I was in the forest.”<br/>
“Still,” Stan insisted, kneeling to undo the laces of Louis’s riding boots, “you don’t know who was tucked into the trees. You ride with quite haste, My Lord. You may not have seen a familiar face watching from behind the birch.” Louis lifted his foot to allow him easier access to remove the first boot. “Besides, if your desire was to take a trip into the centre, I am certain your father would have permitted I drive you to Salem Towne in the coach. If it was adventure you were after, that could have been easily arranged without risking your father’s temper.” He finished unlacing Louis’s other boot, waiting for him to lift his foot like he did the last for easy removal. Louis obliged.<br/>
“An adventure is no longer when one seeks permission,” he said firmly and Stan looked up at him. They held eye contact for a moment, mutual knowingness whispered in the air. The corner of Stan’s lip quirked upward before he broke their eye contact and removed Louis’s second boot. He stood so that he was at his full height, a full 4 inches taller than his noble friend. When Louis wore his riding boots with their solid heel, the difference was less pronounced. Inwardly, he shrank even further from self-consciousness. He was exactly three inches shorter than the average male in their colony, but often it felt like a mile. He sighed to no one but himself, holding his arms out to either side while Stan worked with nimble fingers to undo the delicate buttons of his doublet. Finally, he was left in his stockings, breeches, and shirt, rubbing his hands together and savoring the much-needed warmth from the friction. “I think I will sit beside the fire until supper is served, if that is alright. I am in much need of a thaw before my toes regain their feeling once more.”<br/>
“It is certainly not alright,” came a familiar voice from the kitchen on the other side of the south wall. Marjorie, the servant that replaced Stella after she passed away, stood in the doorway, hands on her hips. She was clearly unimpressed. “While you were set on galavanting halfway across the colony for lack of any tolling responsibilities, some of us were working.” Louis smiled sweetly at her, the woman who assumed the closest position to a mother for him when his own mother died. “Dinner is on the table.”<br/>
“My sweet Marjorie,” Louis hummed, waltzing across the floor and wrapping his arms around her. He rested his cheek atop her full bosom, listening to the even heartbeat beneath the skin. “Just a moment by the fire would not disturb the Earth in her constant rotation. Allow me this liberty.” Marjorie scoffed, brushing him off with hardly concealed fondness.<br/>
“You may do as you please, but your father returned from his day of counsel at the church and seemed deeply agitated. While I may not tell you what you must do, I do not believe it smart to be late to supper given his current temperament,” she said, her stare stony and unwavering. If there were anyone on Earth more stubborn than Louis, he could count the offenders on one hand. Number one on the list would be Marjorie. He groaned and she shook her head, retreating back into the kitchen. “Fine, go defrost by the fire. But do not think it was lost on him that you rode far enough into the forest that you did return until dusk. Adding insult to injury in the face of one’s keeper is never wise.” Louis scoffed.<br/>
“He’s not my keeper, Marjorie. He is my father,” he replied. She simply laughed from behind the kitchen wall as if he had recited a particularly amusing joke. He did not bother responding, knowing it would only lead to her further pleasure and his own foul mood. After all, he knew she was right.<br/>
“I suppose I will have my supper before I cause more grievances than I can afford,” he sighed and Stan gave him a sympathetic grin. “Thank you, Stan. I may take it from here. You may be relieved of your duties for the night.” He bowed shallowly as he spoke, gesturing for Stan to retreat to the servant quarters. Stan mirrored the bow before walking through the kitchen door and disappearing from sight. Once alone, Louis closed his eyes for a few moments and took a deep breath to brace himself. If Marjorie made a note to inform him of his father’s poor spirits, he must be in quite the striking mood.<br/>
When he walked into the dining room, his father sat at the head of the table, and Louis’s two younger sisters sat on either side of him. He cursed to himself, knowing that being the last to the table was enough of an offense to earn a pointed look from the perpetually cross older man. When he was in a sour mood, however, it was enough for him to raise hellfire and brimstone. His father did not look up when he entered the room, however. It was when Louis pulled out the chair that scraped against the hardwood floor that his father looked up from his plate. “Thank you for finally joining us, my darling son,” he cooed across the table. The term of endearment dripped with sarcasm, and Louis remained silent. Moments after he was seated, Marjorie walked in and set his plate in front of him. “You must be quite famished after your lengthy ventures deep into the woods, hm?,” he asked in a faux innocent voice. Louis kept his gaze low, watching his plate as he began slicing into the salted pork.<br/>
“I am decently hungry,” Louis responded evenly, carefully avoiding falling into his father’s trap to incriminate himself. Nervous sweat began to bead at his temple. He was miraculously thawed in the blink of an eye, his cheeks tinted red for reasons other than the cold.<br/>
“Where exactly did you go?,” his father pressed. “You were preparing the horse for a journey when I departed and you were nowhere to be found when I returned. A simple trot through the woods does not take hold of one’s whole day,” he said coolly, and while Louis had not dared to look up from his plate, he could feel his father’s cold gaze burning two holes into his skull.<br/>
“We rode the trail several times before returning home,” he lied, pushing the food around on his plate. “I enjoy the cold air for pondering my thoughts,” he explained and fought a flinch when his father let out a boisterous laugh.<br/>
“Pondering your thoughts, eh?,” he remarked after cackling across the table. “And what exactly does my only son have to ponder, hm? My son with no worries of his own? What exactly is there to ponder for a boy with an empty head?” Louis flushed with rage at that. He gripped his silverware with white knuckles and grit his teeth to keep from speaking in a way he could not rectify after. His sisters watched him with wide eyes, praying he did not speak back to their father the way he so wished he could.<br/>
“I am 19 now, Father,” he replied as evenly as he could. “I am hardly a boy, anymore. I believe it appropriate to call me a man, now.” His father scoffed at that.<br/>
“A man? A man?,” he laughed cruelly. “A man does not feed any and all responsibility tossed onto his plate to the dogs like a slab of rotting meat. He takes hold of them and puts his heart into executing them to the utmost excellence he can possibly achieve.” Louis snapped at that.<br/>
“And what responsibility have you tossed onto my plate, Father? Accompanying Félicité to receive her tutoring? Making sure Charlotte does not fall victim to the advances of the fast boys of this village, such as a certain Jonathan Abbott?” He maintained eye contact with his father now, hatred dripping from his razor sharp gaze. He had, as always, fallen into his father’s trap.<br/>
“You needn’t drag me as a scapegoat into your battles, Brother!,” Charlotte hissed. “I have no desire to be a martyr in the wars you wage upon yourself!” Louis did not even acknowledge her outburst, focusing all of his energy into holding his father’s icy gaze. No one spoke for a while, but it was his father who broke the silence.<br/>
“To be offered responsibility, one must demonstrate that they are trustworthy enough to complete the tasks assigned to them,” he said slowly, never breaking eye contact. “That does not often include running off to saunter into the woods when one grows restless.” Louis felt violent rage growing in the pit of his stomach, clawing up his throat and threatening to spill out and leave the linen tablecloth a bloody and soiled mess. “It certainly does not include lying to the person who is to bestow trust upon you when they question where you wandered on your unannounced pilgrimage to the next village over.” Louis froze. How could he possibly have known? Instead of admitting to his crimes, he thought carefully about his next words to avoid incriminating himself.<br/>
“I am ready to accept responsibility, Father. Give me your trust,” Louis said solemnly. “I will not disappoint your surely vast expectations of me.” His father snorted, returning his attention back to his plate.<br/>
“You could not possibly disappoint me more than you already have,” he replied lightly, but the singsong tone of his voice did nothing to dull the sting of the slap across the face the words delivered. Louis’s cheeks burned and his mouth moved without his mind’s permission.<br/>
“Not if you don’t give me the chance.” His father halted mid bite, his fork halfway to his mouth. He glanced up at his son who stared back at him with a new fire of drive to prove him wrong beneath his bottom. He returned his fork to his plate, watching his son like for the first time since his conception, he was interested in what he had to offer.<br/>
“Very well,” he said, putting his silverware down altogether and folding his hands on the table in front of him. “You would like to prove yourself worthy of my trust?” Louis nodded a little too eagerly. “Explain to me why Philip Calder came into my quarters this morning asking why his daughter has not heard from the boy supposedly courting her in a fortnight.” The rage overpowered the burning shame, licking his throat and turning the tips of his ears bright red, but Louis held his composure.<br/>
“Perhaps she is not the one our Creator has deemed my rightful other half,” he replied evenly. His father did not falter.<br/>
“Do you expect to receive a greater dowry than from the most successful cotton merchant in Salem Towne?,” his father asked him with faux patience, tilting his head to accentuate the false concern in his voice. “Do not insult our Savior’s intelligence by suggesting he would write fate to shoot his own chosen people in the foot.” Louis bit this tongue so hard a coppery taste filled his mouth. He bounced his leg beneath the table, fighting himself to retain his face of stone. Finally, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked back to see his father’s bemused face. “Need a moment to collect yourself, Princess?” Before Louis could unleash the demonic level of rage built up in the pit of his gut, Félicité was his saving grace, changing the topic with pointed swiftness to avoid the war that was about to be waged.<br/>
“You were rather upset when you arrived home, Father,” she said and he finally set his sights on someone else at the table. Louis’s shoulders drooped as he let out a labored breath, folding like an unskilled gambler at the round table when he was not the one up to bat. “Did something happen at counsel today?” Their father pursed his lips, looking at a point beyond his youngest daughter’s head, as if looking into a pool of unknown depths, considering whether or not to dive in headfirst. His hesitance peaked Louis’s interest, tuning in once again.<br/>
“I do not know if I am at liberty to say,” he said quietly, suddenly fascinated with the contents of his dinner plate. The three siblings exchanged glances over his hanged head with wide eyes. Whatever it was that he was alluding to was surely of utmost interest if he were wary to share.<br/>
“If you cannot share with your own flesh and blood, have you any liberty at all?,” Charlotte asked. This caused the older man to pause, preoccupied with the weight of the information he was withholding that seemed so heavy it actually weighed him down. His children waited patiently for him to speak again with rapt attention.<br/>
“Samuel Parris came seeking my counsel early this morning,” he spoke finally, the gears churning in his head as he chose his words with utmost precision. “I believe his daughter, Elizabeth, is two years beneath you in school, Félicité,” he said and she nodded slowly.<br/>
“Is she okay?,” Charlotte asked and their father didn’t answer right away.<br/>
“Yes and no,” he said after a long pause. “She is alive and exhibits no signs of illness or injury, but she will likely not be at school for a brief period.”<br/>
“What happened to her?,” Félicité asked and he sighed, raking a hand through his thinning light brown hair.<br/>
“Do you know of their slave, Tituba?” he asked and the other two siblings waited for their sister’s reply. Félicité nodded.<br/>
“Yes, she accompanies Elizabeth to and from school each day,” she said, brow furrowing. “Father, what has happened?”<br/>
“Well, Elizabeth and a friend-- you know of Abigail Williams, I assume?” Félicité nodded quickly, frown deepening in worry as the list of her peers somehow involved in this mysterious disaster lengthened. “They came to Mr. Parris with some… alarming accusations.”<br/>
“About Tituba?,” Félicité asked, confused. Her father nodded. “I never would have mounted even the most innocuous suspicion upon her head,” she said, concern clear as day on her innocent face. “What accusations have they made?” This question made their father shift, clearly uncomfortable with whatever the answer was. Charlotte and Louis shared a concerned look as their sister stared at her father with an expression bordering on panic.<br/>
“They claim that she has been teaching them of matters having to do with the occult,” he said in a low voice, again staring at that point just beyond his young daughter’s head. Louis felt his eyes grow impossibly wide and his jaw all but hit the floor. Innocent Félicité was too young to understand this new and strange word, however, and the crease between her eyebrows only deepened.<br/>
“The…?” she trailed off, already allowing the word to slip from her mind’s gentle grasp.<br/>
“The occult,” Louis spoke then, and all eyes were on him once again. He only looked at his father. “There is a witch walking among us,” he said, and his youngest sister’s demeanor immediately shifted from confusion to full-blown panic. The older man said nothing, just watching his son with a steely gaze. “Father?”<br/>
“That is what seems to be so,” he replied stoically, and Félicité was reduced to a shaking mess, tears of fear streaming down her porcelain face. “After a righteous beating, she confessed to her sins,” he said quietly, lowering his gaze to the table, “and claims two noblewomen in this village are members of her coven.” Félicité’s sobs rang louder and Charlotte covered her mouth in shock.<br/>
“Noblewomen?,” Louis cried. “No one truly noble would act in allegiance with the Devil! Who?,” he demanded from his father who suddenly looked so much older in this light.<br/>
“That, I cannot share,” he replied, shaking his head somberly. “But one of these women has been seen trekking into the woods on foot in rain, sleet, and snow. It seems there is a drifter living in a cottage deep in the woods, somewhere between here and Marblehead. It is believed he is somehow facilitating the coven in their sins with herbs and potions. A master of spells, if you will,” he replied. “And no one wants to risk their skin to investigate, naturally. Who would want to? Take one step too close to his land and one may find themselves with the head of a turkey and an ass’s …. Well…,” he trailed off. Louis racked his brain, searching for the image of a cottage tucked into the trees on his journey, but he could not recall even a shanty shack of hay and twigs. As so often was the case when getting himself into mischief, Louis spoke before he truly weighed the words on his tongue for their worth.<br/>
“I will go,” he volunteered. The rest of the table turned to look at him with varying levels of incredulity on each face.<br/>
“Louis, this is not the time--,” his father began to address him, clearly irritated by the outburst, before Louis cut him off.<br/>
“Trust me with this responsibility, Father,” he said. “I will venture into the woods and find this drifter. Perhaps he can be saved by your godly sermon.” His father looked at him as if he was the most peculiar sight to ever cross his visage.<br/>
“You truly desire to complete this quest? Knowing it may cost you the very bones in your core?” Louis gulped at that, not having thought about the possibility of not surviving the encounter with the prophet of the underworld. He nodded all the same.<br/>
“Allow me to take on this challenge, Father. It is in this way I will prove myself a deserving recipient of your trust,” he vowed solemnly. The dining room was completely silent, waiting for the head of the household to announce his decision. His younger sisters looked at him, horrified, his father perplexed by the sudden shift of character. Finally, he spoke.<br/>
“You will go without horse, so he may not hear you coming.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was with the first whispers of the rising morning sun that Louis was shaken awake by his father, face barely visible in the twilight. “Father wha-- what time is it?,” Louis asked, bleary-eyed and half asleep as he sat up in bed. His father crossed the room, not looking back until he reached the door, his hand on the brass knob.<br/>“Too late for a child dressing up as a hero to be whinging about losing his beauty rest,” he replied coldly before exiting the room and leaving the door ajar. That woke Louis up right away. There is nothing like a father’s resentment to get one ready for the day ahead.<br/>He swung his legs over the bed, padding across the chilled hardwood towards his wardrobe. The dim light from the outside was hardly enough to see, but he knew Stan would not be awake to help him dress so early in the morning. He thought it could not be later than 4:30, barely on the dawn side of night. He shuffled through his drawers to find suitable stockings and breeches, pulling them up over his shirt to tuck in the ballooning fabric. He struggled to tuck it in just right, but gave up with an exasperated sigh shortly into the pointless fight. He allowed the fabric to be crumpled beneath the doublet, surely leaving lasting wrinkles in its wake. He knew he would never hear the end of it from Marjorie, but he didn’t care at that moment. The only thing on his mind was proving a point to his father, and perhaps himself, too. In a funny way, despite his father planting the seed of self-resentment deep inside Louis’s heart long ago, despite Louis holding grudges that ran so deep he felt they were the very veins that pumped the lifeblood to his heart, despite all but hating his father with every fiber of his being, it was an aching longingness that shrouded him like a storm cloud hovering over only his head: the desperate and insatiable desire to make him proud. Maybe he ought to hate himself for how pathetic he was. He opted for pushing the thought from his mind as he stepped out into the hallway, seeing that Marjorie had folded his coat and left it out for him beside his freshly polished boots. An intense feeling of fondness washed over him like drawing a warm bath. By this time the sun had begun her ascent into the sky, dawn breaking through the window with the golden light of the largest star in their sky. A cold breeze swept through the house as his father had left the door open to make a statement: I will not wait for you. Message received.<br/>After lacing up his boots and pulling on his coat, Louis stepped outside into the crisp morning air. His father was already waiting for him in the carriage sent to their property by the Parris family. He sat, eyes trained on his small leather-bound notebook. He did not acknowledge his son sitting across from him in the covered buggy, lost in his own thoughts. Louis sat in silence while his father poured over his notes from the previous day’s encounter with one Samuel Parris. Louis did not mind the silence, watching the snow-covered trees wave at him from the forest just a stone’s throw away. It was the very forest where he was to meet who could very well be the Devil himself. He was hit with a wave of nausea at the thought, suddenly making a point to tear his eyes from the trees and instead study the skillfully upholstered velvet cushions inside the buggy. His father pushed his spectacles farther up his nose from where they had slid down in his avid reading. Louis studied his father’s weathered face and dared to wonder if there was ever any softness between the frown lines for him at all. It was a dangerous thought to allow himself to have, and he blamed it on being awakened at the ungodly hour at which he had been shaken, not stirred, from his sleep. As with all of his unwelcome thoughts, he simply pushed it from his mind and locked the door once it made its way out. He knew the intrusive thought of WHEN WILL I BE ENOUGH FOR HIM? would somehow find its way back in the foyer of his mind despite him changing the locks, but for now, he could stare at the quilted velvet cushions with a blank mind and pounding heart.<br/>After the sun had risen considerably higher in the sky so it was no longer dawn but simply the early morning, they finally arrived at their first stop. Suddenly, it all felt too real. Louis was really going to climb out of this buggy, journey by himself on foot into the woods, actively searching for an agent of the demonic. Anxiety set in deep in his bones, but with his father’s eyes regarding him with their unwavering intensity, he lifted his chin up a notch and did not let himself falter.<br/>“Do you understand what you are here to do?,” his father asked slowly and Louis took a deep breath before nodding.<br/>“I am to head south through the woods until I reach the town of Marblehead. On my trek, I will be searching for a cottage belonging to the supposed drifter. I meet you at The Black Sheep Tavern and recount my findings or lack thereof,” Louis repeated the careful directions almost verbatim from when his father had mapped the plan out for him the night before.<br/>“There is no need to be brave,” his father snapped. “If you come across the cottage, do not approach unless you feel you have no choice. I’m not sure if I trust you to aptly make that call, but I suppose I have not been given an option.” Louis’s gut stirred with dull rage like an ever-present stomach ache when in the same room as his father. “If the drifter approaches you, do not answer any questions that may compromise your safe return,” he warned, looking wary at even the thought of his only son having to speak to a lost soul. “Be smart and steadfast, my boy.” Louis wore a small grin.<br/>“I will be a man to you by the time I reach the other side of these woods.’<br/>With that, he was off. He bid his father goodbye before approaching the edge of the woods. Without Buttercup, the sheer size of the forest was daunting to him. How he could possibly make it to Marblehead before the sun dipped behind the horizon was unknown to him, though he supposed that is why they had decided to leave from this dropoff point rather than from their home. It was to minimize the distance he had to cross without cutting out enough land to risk him not at least passing by the alleged cottage on his route to the next town. He glanced down at the silver compass in his hand once before slipping it into the pocket of his coat and taking his first steps into the forest. It would certainly be a long, cold day.</p><p> </p><p>✥</p><p> </p><p>He had been walking since about seven that morning, and he suspected it was likely nearing noon by now, if not rushing past the hour. He sighed, a cloud rising from his mouth as he did so. He knew he would be cold upon accepting this mission, but he had no idea just how cold he would be. He had lost most feeling in his legs and fingers hours ago. It was truly a mystery how he managed to continue walking. It was as he was pondering this grievance of his that his stomach grumbled at an obnoxious decibel, reminding him for the umpteenth time that he did not pack any food for his journey. They discussed whether he should bother, and considering he would presumably find himself in Marblehead in time for supper, his father had made the executive decision that it would be better for him to carry as little as possible. This way, he would lighter on his feet to aid him if he faced the need to make a great escape. While this conclusion made sense at the time, it was growing harder for him to understand, now.<br/>It was then, barely visible through the treeline, that he spotted it: a cottage with a stream of smoke wafting through the chimney in the distance. His heart all but stopped, and he halted in his march. This no longer felt like a mission to make his father proud, but a suicide mission. What good was a proud father when he would not be alive to bask in the glory? <br/>He argued internally whether to change direction just slightly enough to avoid the house and claim he saw nothing on his journey, or follow his father’s directions. The words from the dinner table rang in his ears: To be offered responsibility, one must demonstrate that they are trustworthy enough to complete the tasks assigned to them. He lifted his chin a notch or two. He would continue on his path up towards the house.<br/>As he neared the cottage, the cores of his bones grew colder and colder. He was petrified but did his best to conceal it, pressing his mouth into a hard line so that his teeth did not chatter-- not from the cold, but from pure fear. He realized that the cottage was white-washed, and the door painted a bright shade of crimson. Much like Hell’s door, he thought to himself. Continuing to close the distance, he could see bottles of different colors sitting on the windowsills, casting light through stained glass into the modest home. Flowers bloomed around the house in vibrant hues he had never seen in Salem before. Unexplainable was the lush greenery growing from the frozen winter soil. He was truly mesmerized by the sight. He expected a friend of the Devil to live in a palace of darkness, not in a garden of lilies and wildflowers.<br/>The smoke rising from the chimney suggested that the occupant was indeed home, and this knowledge had Louis breaking into a cold sweat. Once right upon the house, he slowed his pace in an effort to conceal his footsteps. He shifted his gaze to the ground in front of him for no longer than a moment to keep a watchful eye on where he was going when his blood ran cold at the sound of a low, drawling voice.<br/>“Lost?” Louis halted in his movement, heart pounding out of his chest. The voice had come from right outside the cottage, which he could be no more than 10 paces from. Agonizingly slow, he turned to look at the owner of the gravelly voice, and his pulse quickened out of fear as well as something he could not identify. The person standing before him was not the gnarled husk of a man Louis had expected to see when he imagined a warlock living in isolation in the middle of the barren winter wood, distributing his deathly potions to his coven to demolish a Christian town. He had dark curls seemingly made of fine silk flowing just past his shoulders, flyaway hairs glowing like a halo in the golden sunlight. His skin was lightly tanned, a strange sight this deep into the winter. He wore no coat, only his shirt, unlaced and only half tucked into his breeches. The loosened shirt gave Louis a clear view of the chest underneath. The golden skin glowed in the midday sun, and two black birds spread their wings across his clavicle. He had a smirk upon his full rose petal lips and a steaming cup in his hand where he leaned against his doorway. Louis said nothing, just taking in the sight before him. He could not put into words the hold he had on him, but he knew there was electricity coursing through his veins in the place of blood. He wanted to run, screaming and crying, into the arms of his mother while also wanting to feel the velveteen skin painted with inky black winged creatures under his fingertips just to make sure he was real. He forgot how to breathe, taking in his undeniable beauty. Even from here, he could see the piercing green eyes watching him curiously. He cocked his head in silent questioning, amused at Louis’s stunned silence. This prompted him to finally speak.<br/>“No,” Louis croaked, his voice sounding small, even to him. “I am exactly where I am meant to be.” The stranger hummed around the rim of his mug, taking a long sip before responding.<br/>“Quite profound,” he remarked. “If I did not know better, I would think of you a poet.”<br/>“If you did not know better?,” Louis asked, fighting his nerves to speak in full sentences. <br/>“Observing the facts at face value, we see a young man wandering through my woods in the dead of winter in nothing but a jacket and doublet. He stumbles across my doorway and speaks of fate in roundabout tongues,” he sighed, almost longing. “A poet, surely. A romantic of the hopeless variety without a single doubt.”<br/>“But you know better..?,” it comes out as more of a question and the green eyes crinkle around the corners in a grin.<br/>“Nothing gets past you, I see,” the illusive man smiled devilishly. A chill ran down Louis’s spine. “I suppose I thought if anyone had the sense not to stop to befriend mysterious strangers in the middle of the woods, it would be the pastor’s only son.” Louis paled, a million thoughts running through his head. Before he could even begin to process this revelation, the man spoke again. “Imagine my surprise when I am afforded the pleasure of seeing you twice in just two days. Where is your horse and her mane sewn from gold?,” he asked, glancing around the woods before looking back at Louis, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Or was it your intention to catch me by surprise? Is that why you wandered into my forest with nothing but the clothes on your back?” Louis was shocked completely still, hardly able to breathe from the panic setting deep inside of him. The man looked at him expectantly, clearly amused by his catatonic state. “Has he no breath with which to speak in his lungs? Or is he that captivated by my charm and impish beauty?” Louis’s cheeks glowed at the insinuation, and he puffed out his chest as he struggled to regain his composure.<br/>“You do not frighten me, demon,” he said firmly, balling his fists at his sides to keep his hands from betraying him with their insistent trembling. The other man raised an eyebrow, smug smile never wavering. <br/>“Demon? Is that what you think I am?,” he asked and Louis simply raised his chin in defiance. “Foolish, boy,” he said pointedly, shaking his head in faux disappointment. “Your father is right about you.” Louis felt his anger spike, going right to his head.<br/>“You know nothing of me or my father to cast your devilish judgements,” he snapped and the man tilted his head to beg a silent question just as his father had at the dining room table the previous night.<br/>“Sorry, did I hit a nerve, My Lord?,” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “My apologies. Boys are innocent creatures with not a clear understanding of right and wrong. Men own other men and dare to call them “friend”. Please forgive the slip of my feeble tongue. I have not been awarded the privilege of the private tutors catered to you in order to preserve your false moral high ground and superiority complex,” he said before taking another long sip from his cup. Louis had never been spoken to in such a politely demeaning way. He was caught in a haze somewhere between boiling rage and the unidentifiable itch he could not quite scratch that had crept up his spine when he first laid his eyes on the man. <br/>“You pass much judgment for a man who walks in stride with the keeper of the underworld,” he spat, seeing red behind his eyes. The jade eyes sparkled at the sharp tone in his voice.<br/>“And you pass much judgment for a man who claims to be of utmost devoutness to your Lord and Savior whilst harboring secrets which you shall never hold up to the light,” he replied easily. “But your grip holding its head under the water is slipping,” he sighed, using his hand not occupied by the steaming cup to further loosen the already mostly unlaced string of his shirt. It was with tantalizingly slow movements of long slender fingers that he exposed more of his golden skin to the bright winter sun. Louis’s mouth went dry as he watched with rapt attention, eyes trained on the deliberately slow movement, like an angel moving through sticky sweet molasses. The man wore a multitude of silver rings on his hands which glittered in the light, some set with crystals and gems such as topaz and opal, others plain silver with foreign inscriptions. “What if the young lady you are to marry knew you were working up a sweat watching a man, a supposed friend of the most infamous fallen angel nonetheless, undress in the woods?,” he asked, shirt falling open enough to expose a butterfly sewn into his abdomen with inky black thread. The air was thick and electrified and Louis could not tear his eyes away from him. He grit his teeth to hold his composure. “You look flushed. Are you feeling feverish, Louis?,” he all but purred his name. Louis looked up to meet his eye, at that.<br/>“You know not of which you speak,” he responded in a low voice. The golden man before him remained unbothered, twirling a shirt string around his finger idly. Louis fought himself not to break eye contact to watch the hypnotizing movement. “You know nothing about me nor my desires.” The green eyes twinkled, full of stars.<br/>“Don’t I?” Neither of them spoke for a few moments, holding eye contact in the loaded silence.<br/>“Who are you?,” Louis asked finally. He meant for it to come out as a demand, but there was awe laced into the tone of his voice. The man smiled behind the rim of his mug, lips glistening in the light. Louis was entranced by his mouth.<br/>“I believe you may already know.”</p><p> </p><p>✥</p><p> </p><p>	The remainder of his journey lasted into dusk, the evening sun setting behind the trees as he found himself approaching the village of Marblehead. It could have been days or just minutes to have passed him by since his encounter with the man who has a heart of darkness yet a smile of stardust. He was no longer chilled from the cold. He had long ago thawed, sweating through his jacket despite the vicious bite of the sharpened teeth belonging to the New England winter. His mind had succumbed to the voice in his head he had spent his whole life begging to keep quiet. Walking alone through these woods, there was no distraction great enough to wipe the memory of his mind short-circuiting from the angelic beauty of the walking anomaly of a man. Bile rose in his throat as he understood despite his refusal to make sense of the stirring behind his ribs, like a muscle he had never used on the left side of his chest had finally whirred to life. He did not dare pray to God asking for forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness was admitting to the crime. Perhaps if he could paint the flush on the back of his neck in just the right shade of rose, he could make it out to be innocuous curiosity. A curiosity never felt towards the supposed object of your affections. Louis clenched his fists with white knuckles, fingernails leaving bloody crescent moons on the palms of his hands. The imp’s voice teased him in its drawling tones in his own head. Could one fall under a spell before it was cast at all?<br/>	He sleepwalked through the forest and through the doors of The Black Sheep Tavern. He looked around the room at the unfamiliar faces that held no flame to the beauty he had witnessed earlier that day. The low, taunting voice serenaded him in his mind, gracefully delivering blows to his ego, making him feel the smallest he ever did. At the same time, the flame behind those green eyes built him up with every flicker of curiosity. Brick by brick, he became the smallest man living in the biggest house of damnation in the woods of Salem.<br/>	Mark Tomlinson sat at the bar, watching the door. He had arrived long ago, and never let his gaze stray. When his son arrived, he was eerily calm for a young man who had hiked through the woods in the dead of winter looking for the keeper of pure evil, spreading like Black Death through their village. Something had shifted below the surface. “Son,” he called out, but the object of his exclamation did not respond, just stared blankly towards the back of the crowded room at a sight not visible to anyone else. “Louis,” he called then, and the name recognition was enough to rouse him. His son turned to look at him, slightly more conscious, but still in a daze. He approached his father, who suddenly felt ill at the removed state of his son. “What is the matter?,” he asked in a low voice when they were face to face to keep the contents of their conversation guarded. Louis blinked with a blank stare, failing to even acknowledge his father had spoken. Mark grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, shouting into his face, “ANSWER ME, LOUIS!” Not only did this violent outburst force Louis to snap out of his trance of unholy distraction, it garnered the attention of several other patrons of the bar, a hush falling over them as they watched the pair curiously. <br/>	“Nothing is the matter, Father! I am simply facing exhaustion from my tireless journey,” he spoke quickly, eyes wider than that of a doe. “I have been walking since the morning, forgive my wandering mind.” His father let go of him at that, but the look in his eye was wary of the flimsy excuse. Perhaps on any other day after a long hike through the woods under different circumstances, he would not question the validity of his son’s exhaustion. But it was no other day, and the circumstances were not the forgiving kind. Louis noticed his father’s hesitation and continued. “Really, Father. Everything is as it should be. Your son has returned to you with no harm to a single whisker on his chin.”<br/>“What did you see in there?,” his father ignored him, narrowing his eyes at the young man before him. Something had changed, but it was too far beneath the surface for him to identify what it was. It was in the flush of his cheeks, the unfamiliar glimmer in his eye. His son was not forthcoming about his condition, and due to the nature of his mission, this made Mark wary of his peculiarly lackadaisical demeanor. Louis did not answer his question right away, holding his gaze as the gears turned in his head. His father watched, noticing how his son chose his next words with razor sharp precision. <br/>“Nothing,” he answered finally. His father raised a thick eyebrow, unimpressed with his answer.<br/>“Nothing? Not even a trace? Not even a single herb growing from the icy ground out of place?,” his father pressed him, but Louis had made his decision and could not go back on his word without incriminating himself in the crime of lying for a witch. At this moment, the man was not his father, he was the pastor of Salem Village. He had a congregation to serve and it was Louis’s responsibility to aid in their protection from evil. He shook his head.<br/>“Truly, Father. There was nothing to behold on my journey,” he vowed. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, his father watching him with uncertain eyes, unsure of whether he should believe his son who walked into the tavern like he was following a siren’s song. What he said next took even himself by surprise, like his lips were possessed by his obscene obsession. “I will venture through these woods once more on horse. I will cover more land that way. He cannot hide until the end of days.” His father watched him closely, waiting for him to falter. He never did. <br/>“And you still believe yourself fit for the role of his eventual captor?” his father asked, clearly not holding the utmost confidence in his son’s abilities. There was an uncharacteristic calm about Louis in this moment, unruffled by the figurative jab in the ego. He didn’t even blink.<br/>“While you may have no faith in me, Father, do have faith in the Lord’s plan,” he played to his father’s devout nature. This caused the older man’s spine to stiffen, immediately straightening.<br/>“Do not bring our Creator into your petty games of playing martyr,” his father snapped in a hushed tone. Louis shook his head.<br/>“You have misunderstood my intentions,” he stated evenly. “God the Father in his infinite wisdom has chosen me for this mission. I owe it to him to see this through.” At that, his father fell silent. He pondered his son’s words and the weight which they carried. “Perhaps my purpose is to save the wretched soul in his tar black heart. I will not know unless I give this a noble try.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Sun had barely risen when Louis began his second journey into the woods to find one mysterious drifter. The sky was a bleak gray, and even covering more ground with the help of his horse, the bitter cold nipped at his nose and the tips of his ears until they were numb from the cold. Buttercup huffed seemingly in protest, a cloud of mist rising from her snout. Louis ran a thumb through her mane absent-mindedly, lost deep in his own thoughts. While it was his own doing to be venturing back to the crimson-doored-cottage so soon, his stomach continued to twist and turn in his stomach like it had been caught in a skipping rope belonging to one of his sisters. He kept his eyes trained on the expanse of land in front of him, studying his surroundings for any sign of the peculiar man’s dwelling place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Louis was abruptly removed from his thoughts when Buttercup whined pointedly. A flock of crows cawed from up above, flying away from a disturbance up ahead. He had only allowed his gaze to wander for just a moment, but in that time, the cottage had appeared on the horizon. His heart picked up in his chest at the sight of the now familiar billowing smoke rising from the chimney that peeked out from the thatched roof. The door stared at him, mocking his racing heart with its blood-red glow. He swallowed his nerves, lifted his chin a few notches to preserve his prematurely wavering pride, and gave Buttercup a firm kick to launch her into a gallop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time he tightened the reins to bring her to a halt just a few meters from the doorstep, the beautiful stranger was nowhere to be found. He must be home, or at least Louis had assumed, as the smoke from the chimney spoke of a fire roaring within the quaint home before him. Surely not even a messenger of the devil would be reckless enough to leave a fire burning unattended while he wandered the forest completing his ungodly tasks. Louis hesitated, looking all around the woods for the face chiseled from marble to appear as he had the day prior, but he did not show. If his master plan was to burn Salem’s forest as a warning shot, he would not achieve the satisfaction. Louis dismounted Buttercup and tied her to a low branch of a nearby tree. He turned to face the house, suddenly so much bigger from the ground looking up. He took a deep breath before marching towards the door. However, his gait slowed the closer he got as dread rose in the back of his throat as bile. A cold sweat beaded his brow as he reached the crimson door. His hand trembled as it slowly rose from his side, almost by the power of possession and not by his own will. Just as it was about to rest on the unexpectedly ornate brass knob, Louis nearly jumped out of his skin when a familiar voice spoke from behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Looking for someone?” Louis swung around in an instant to see the owner of the deepest voice he’d ever been charmed to hear. The drifter stood between Louis and his horse, an amused smirk on his full lips, and no jacket around his shoulders despite the biting winter chill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You weren’t what? About to disturb the peace of my home out of morbid curiosity?,” he asked, and it was then that Louis noticed what he carried in his ring-clad hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What have you got there?,” Louis asked, and the other man looked down at his parcel then back up at him with a piqued brow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you never seen vegetables before?,” he asked and Louis flushed immediately in humiliation. Why was he so concerned with how a disciple of the devil perceived his intelligence? “These are carrots, darling boy.” Something stirred deep inside of Louis upon receiving the gentle pet name and his flush deepened from something unlike embarrassment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know they are carrots, for I am not blind,” he snapped coldly, though it came out more peevish than he would have liked. “Why do you carry them with you on your trek through these woods?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you stood on my doorstep trying to enter my home while I am not nigh?” he countered and Louis almost admitted defeat. Almost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps if you offer me clarity in my questioning you will be awarded with answers of your own,” Louis retorted coolly and the other man’s eyes twinkled, accepting the challenge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very well,” he replied, a small smile playing his lips. “Even a demon must eat. Corrupting the youth of Salem has left me quite famished.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought that you said you were not a demon,” Louis said, narrowing his eyes. The other man shrugged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not recall confirming nor denying your suspicions,” he replied and Louis huffed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You called me foolish for saying so!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I called you foolish because you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he corrected him and Louis scowled. “You protest being assigned such labels whilst you break into an accused witch's home. I am unsure of a more foolish act a baptized Christian could possibly commit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you plan on eating only carrots for supper?,” Louis ignored his last statement. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do my dinner plans concern you so?,” he asked and Louis hoped he thought the blush on his cheeks was from the cold. “Would you have brought me last night’s supper if that were the case?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you make such an inquiry as though it were unimaginable that I could be kind?,” Louis asked, and this brought on a boisterous laugh from the other man, head thrown back to bear a pronounced Adam's apple. Louis licked his lips absently. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have had your entire life to choose kindness and you have failed,” he replied, the devastating jab falling from his lips as easily as a playful joke, but cutting deeper than any jest. “Your own father, whom you idolize despite yourself, preaches charity and generosity as long as the fruits of such endeavors find their way into his pocket. He pushes his congregation to give to the Church until they have nothing left to give without selling the clothes off their backs whilst demonizing the populations of New England’s poorhouses in the same breath.” Louis could not find anything of value to dispute this point, but felt rage build deep in his gut nonetheless. “Your father is a fraud, and when the time comes for him to finally return to where he came from, I hope the Devil provides him with the warmest welcome.” His sparkling smile never wavered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How dare you speak of a godly man in such disdainful terms! You know nothing of my father to pass such judgement!” Louis cried and the man rolled his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, please,” he said, grown bored of the conversation. “Do you not tire of protecting the honor of a man who would not seize the opportunity to do the same for you in fear of creasing his dress shirt?” Louis felt the rage boil over then fizzle in his chest, deflating at the harsh words. He knew it was the truth, but it was a blow lower than he was willing to acknowledge. The pain flashed over his visage but he fought to conceal his weakness, face hardening into unbreakable stone. Upon recognizing the hurt his words had caused, something like regret flickered in the green eyes. It was a weak flame that was gone as soon as it had come to life, nothing more than a trick of the light. Louis noted it nonetheless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You hate my father and I should expect that, being that you align yourself with the false prophecies that you do,” Louis said grimly, shaking his head. “He could be the very one that saves you.” That prompted another infectious laugh from the jade-eyed man, turning on his heel to walk towards Buttercup. Louis kept his lips pressed into a hard line as his eyes bore holes in the back of the frivolous man’s silk-lined head despite the tickle beneath his ribs the glittering laughter caused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Saves</span>
  </em>
  <span> me?,” he asked, and Louis could hear the smile in his voice without seeing his face. “There is only one person within these woods that needs saving, and it is certainly not I.” Louis blinked in surprise at the suggestion that he was in need of salvation. Coming from a witch, he supposed he ought to take that as a compliment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing? Is that not your supper?,” Louis asked as the man began feeding Buttercup the carrots in his hand. She munched away eagerly, hunger set deep in her bones from their journey to the cottage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not a rabbit, so my supper consists of more than carrots and cabbage stew,” the other man retorted, using his free hand to card through Buttercup’s golden mane sparkling with stray snowflakes. “These carrots are for your horse. I knew she would be hungry upon your arrival.” Louis frowned deeply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did not know of our arrival as I did not make you aware we would be paying such a visit,” he said and the other man tossed an amused look over his shoulder at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Funny, you’d think with your obsession of my personal rituals you may conclude it is possible that I am of a higher sense of knowing than yourself,” he turned back to Buttercup, feeding her a second carrot and still combing through her mane. “And yet you question why I call you foolish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop calling me foolish for it is not so! I am far from foolish!,” Louis crossed his arms over his chest. “And I carry the weight of no obsession that holds you as the subject,” he lied through his teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please accept my apologies, darling boy,” the pet name made a reappearance along with the butterflies and their sparkling wings in the pit of Louis’s stomach. He finished feeding Buttercup the third and final carrot before dusting off his hands and turning back to face Louis. His golden skin shimmered as though he were the Sun on Earth. Louis was left breathless for a moment. “Would you prefer I call you naïve?” Louis was reeled back into reality from his daydreams with the jestful jab at his ego.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“While it is slightly kinder than being called foolish, I still protest its validity,” he replied, absently sinking away from the approaching man. Before he knew he had moved at all, he felt his back hit the sturdy red wooden door. While he had been stopped dead in his tracks, the other man progressed in his slow waltz towards him, something twisted in his mossy green eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A naïve boy knows not of the world to make a judgment on his own wisdom,” he spoke slowly, each word dripping from his mouth like honey. He drew nearer with each calculated step, seconds drawn out to feel like hours as the distance closed between them. Louis was finally able to put a label on the feeling deep in his bones, the itch he could not scratch that crawled under his skin when he first laid his eyes upon the man and the swallows painted upon his chest. He came right upon Louis, merely inches away. He leaned one forearm against the crimson door above Louis’s head to steady himself. Louis thought he could count each of his eyelashes from where he stood. His breath was shaky in his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not a boy,” he whispered between them, hardly able to speak with his heart in his throat. The other man lowered his head so that it tucked into the side of Louis’s neck. The world blurred around him and he could see nothing but green.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My darling </span>
  <em>
    <span>man</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he spoke against his skin. He was so close that Louis could feel his hot breath creep up his neck like a blush beneath his skin. He melted from the fire he dare not name that the devil of a man had lit inside of him, leaning all his weight against the door as his legs trembled where he stood. “And your obsession?,” he spoke again. His breath smelled of fresh peppermint sticks and Louis struggled to breathe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have none,” he croaked, but it escaped his lips unconvincing at best. He felt the other man’s breath spread across his skin as he chuckled softly. Goosebumps rose in his wake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is a sad day when a holy man finds himself a liar,” he spoke lowly right against Louis’s ear. Louis could not help the whimper at the back of his throat when his lips brushed against the lobe to return to hang over him. A stray curl dangled between them, tickling Louis’s nose. He reached up with his trembling hand, and the other man watched his movement with the sharpest attention. He wrapped it around his finger once, twice, before tucking it behind the golden man’s ear. He was warmer than a down duvet and smelled sweeter than brown sugar molasses. His hair was woven of finer silk than Louis could have dreamed, being the softest thing he ever had the pleasure of feeling against his skin. He held eye contact with the man, counting the shades of greens and golds in his eyes aflame as he dropped his hand back down to his side. The green eyes were dark now, pupils blown wide with an itch much like Louis’s. Something like desire burned brightly within until his smoldering face broke into a wry smile. “He comes preaching salvation yet grows enchanted by a witch’s tongue,” he said, lifting his free hand to cup Louis’s jaw so that their lips were just a breath away. “What would your father say if he saw you yearning for the very object of your witch hunt, splayed out against my door?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not see my father here with us,” he replied quickly which earned a laugh from the intoxicating stranger. When he threw his head back it took all of Louis’s strength not to lick a stripe up the column of his throat just to see if the skin tasted like the honey from which it had been made.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He will come looking for you soon,” he said softly, swiping his thumb idly along Louis’s jaw line. He began to swoop in, so close Louis could smell the scent of his skin: fresh tobacco and warm vanilla. His eyes fluttered closed and his lips parted, awaiting to be met by the plush rose petals that adorned the doll’s face. Instead, the warmth was gone in an instant, and when he opened his eyes, to his dismay, the other man had put two yard’s distance between them, facing away from him with his head upturned towards the sky. Just as he held his hand out, a snowflake fell and melted against the warm skin of his palm. “If Death does not come looking first.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that a threat?,” Louis asked, straightening up and folding his hands in front of himself to hide a most unsavory secret.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is a promise,” the other man said, never looking over his shoulder. Louis’s blood ran cold. Had he fallen into a trap of seduction between cat and mouse? “Not by my hand, foolish boy,” he corrected before Louis could even voice his concerns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought we had moved past calling me foolish,” Louis grumbled but was ignored by the other man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know whether you should go,” he said thoughtfully and Louis furrowed his brow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is the alternative? Spend a night in your bedroom so that you may roast me on a spit and feed me to your coven?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ooh, now I am a cannibal,” the other man said in a singsong tone. “You are an imaginative one, aren’t you?” Louis rolled his eyes at the backhanded compliment. “It was not an invite to be a guest in my home, though I am flattered my bedroom occupies so much space in your mind.” Louis flushed and the man turned to face him once more. A few more snowflakes began to fall, glittering where they got caught in his curls. “I am afraid that if you begin your journey home, you will not make it to your destination.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I should simply not return home after seeking a witch deep in these woods? Allow my father to think of me dead?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it not better than to truly be dead?,” he countered and something about the concern woven into the crease in his brow made Louis stop for a moment, considering the weight of the suggestion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You may have no faith in me, but I have been riding since I was a young boy,” Louis replied, sticking his nose into the air self-righteously. “I know these woods like the back of my hand. I have grown up trotting through these trees. I believe I can make it to the other side of a snowfall.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A snowfall, perhaps,” he replied, nodding once in agreement, “but not a blizzard.” Louis scoffed, rolling his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A blizzard? There is not a single forecast for even a heavy snowfall within a fortnight in the almanac,” Louis smirked and the other man shrugged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, do not believe me,” he said, gesturing toward Buttercup. “If you want to be a martyr, go right on ahead, I will not stop you,” before he spoke again, something dark beneath the surface of his eyes glinted in the light like a pistol tucked into the waistband of a rogue agent. “Just do not use your dying breath to claim you were not warned.” A chill ran down Louis’s spine, like the man was an oracle not warning him of possible danger but promising him of imminent demise. He was woven of the utmost stubborn thread, however. If it took barely escaping Death’s grasp, he would at least try if it meant proving a point to a haughty stranger with polished emeralds for eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I promise you, I will not,” he said, shoulder checking the man as he brushed past him and mounted his horse. The green eyes peered up at him, a strange sadness clouding their playful sparkle he had become accustomed to. It made his heart sink. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You never held up your end of our bargain,” he said then, a weak smile on his face to poorly mask his concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I beg your pardon?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said that if I provided you with clarity, you would provide me with my own,” he said and Louis grinned wryly, finally having the upperhand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said </span>
  <em>
    <span>perhaps</span>
  </em>
  <span> I would,” he corrected him, “And perhaps I won’t,” he gave Buttercup a kick to the side then and they were off, galloping towards the Tomlinson home on the other side of the woods. Louis could not help the feeling of dread spreading like wildfire from the deepest pit of his stomach.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>✥</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What started as a light dusting of snow across the already icy winter landscape became a storm of great proportions. The wind whistled through the trees as snow piled up around them, blowing a steady stream of snow directly into his face leaving him numb and blinded. Buttercup, even with her muscular legs struggled even to move onward at all, the winds and ice proving incredibly hard for even the Tomlinsons’ strongest horse to maneuver through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyelashes had merged together, frozen from the ice chilling his steady stream of tears that flowed down his frostbitten cheeks. His teeth did not even chatter, his jaw locked from the bitter cold. Millions of memories danced through his mind in that moment; the warmth of his mother’s arms, the sting of his first scraped knee, the pride in his younger sisters first learning to cross stitch, and green eyes sparkling in the grey winter Sun. He wondered if they would be what would thaw him as he woke up from his eternal sleep on the other side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a loud crack, and a large branch broke from the force of the wind, striking Buttercup across the snout as it fell to the ground. That was the final straw for his normally loyal companion. In retaliation to the throbbing pain amidst the laundry list of other qualms she had recently accumulated unto her plate, she bucked Louis into the air off her back, running blindly into the forest in an odd direction. Louis rose high into the air, and for a moment, he thought he may simply rise up into the clouds and meet his maker. However, a peaceful departure from this cursed planet was not on his agenda. He hit the ground, falling into a deep bed of snow that crumbled around him, falling into his eyes and mouth as he struggled to breathe. He heard a crack as he fell, and though his body had grown completely numb from the harsh temperatures, he felt his forearm throbbing insistently beneath the coat too thin for such conditions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somewhere deep in the forest, deeper than anyone would dare to venture, he heard his mother calling out to him. She sounded far away yet just beyond where he could reach. She sounded desperate, perhaps excited to welcome her only son into her arms for the first time in years, a coming home of sorts. The number he got, the more tired he got, and the closer his mother’s ghost came to her ailing son. He struggled to keep his eyes open, knowing that if he drifted off to sleep, he would likely not wake up on Earth. However, the pull of rest was too great on his eyes, and they fluttered closed for the last time. The last thing he saw were eyes of jade peering down at him, a look of bitter knowingness seeped deep into their core.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was his nose that awoke him, a mouth watering aroma of spices overwhelming his senses. He thought perhaps that this was Heaven, but this smelled of nothing his mother had ever concocted in their kitchen during his boyhood. He opened his eyes to meet a clay ceiling above him, sitting up suddenly at the revelation that he was, in fact, alive. His sharp movement resulted in a surging pain in his forearm, from which he cried out and clutched close to his chest, seeing red from the pain. He looked around the unfamiliar room, plants of tropical varieties in odd shaped bottles of every color one could think of. Flowers he had only read about in explorers’ accounts stood in their awe-inspiring vibrant hues before him, leaving him breathless at their foreign beauty. He shifted, trying to rise from where he lay on the straw cushions laid upon the floor, but winced in pain at a newfound throbbing in his head. He fell on his back, still cradling his injured arm as the evening’s events began to trickle back into his now conscious brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He has risen,” a voice said from the doorway. Louis’s eyes were still adjusting to the dim light, the Sun having set a good while before he had stirred from his sleep. He could see the faint outline of a familiar slender figure, telltale rings glittering in the weak light of the candles scattered around the room. Louis sat up again, hissing in pain as he thoughtlessly applied pressure to his wounded limb to steady himself. In an instant, the other man was kneeling at his side, busying himself over his lower arm which he now noticed twisted at an unnatural angle. He held a small clay bowl with a glistening mixture in one hand and used two fingers to apply it to the afflicted area. Louis drew his arm back defensively, searching the other man’s face for a hint of malice. When the green eyes met his in the flickering light, he found nothing but a silent plead: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Let me help you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He blinked once before allowing the man to spread the cool mixture over the wound and wrapped it with pale fabric. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, the only sound being the crackling of the fire across the small room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why did you come for me?,” he asked softly, as if afraid to break the tender moment they had found themselves in. The wrapping stopped, a momentary hesitation, as if the fallen angel were considering whether to show his cards. He resumed as quickly as he had ceased, cutting the fabric with a small silver knife. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could not have you die on my land,” he said, carefully bending Louis’s arm then straightening it, watching the movement intently. “I am in no need of your meat. I have already prepared my supper for the evening.” Louis frowned, unimpressed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are not a cannibal,” he deadpanned, and a small smile twisted the full lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am only playing into your suspicions,” he replied and Louis winced as he rotated his wrist, then abruptly stopped, looking up at him in concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That hurt?,” he asked, and Louis nodded. He began rotating the wrist slowly until the pain rose again at one specific angle, causing Louis to inhale sharply. He hummed thoughtfully, lifting the arm to inspect the underside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing?,” Louis asked curiously, the man running his thumb gently over the area, searching for any protruding bones. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am surveying the damage you have managed to incur upon yourself on your joyride through the snowy wood,” he replied and Louis furrowed his brow in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are a physician?,” he asked and the other man chuckled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It takes no man of medicine to see you have fractured your arm,” he said and Louis’s eyes widened with sudden worry for his own wellbeing. “It is minimal compared to what could have been. You are very lucky to have landed the way you did, for your condition could have been much worse.” For some reason, this calmed Louis slightly. He allowed himself to deflate, studying the way the candlelight danced across the golden man’s skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You saved my life, didn’t you?,” he whispered and the man paused before looking up at him with a guarded look, not answering the question either way. Louis inhaled, thousands of questions causing his head to spin, but none landing on his tongue. Finally he sighed around one word, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Why</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” The familiar playful smile returned. Being this close, Louis noticed for the first time that there was a dimple poked into each cheek when his lips spread into a smile across his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you make such an inquiry as though it were unimaginable that I could be kind?,” he echoed Louis’s own words from earlier that day back to him. The tips of Louis’s ears burned bright red and he prayed the man could not see such involuntary betrayals of the body in the dim light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am unable to make sense of your motives,” Louis said, and the beautiful stranger watched him closely, eyes sparkling. “You speak of doing the earthly bidding of the underworld yet save the life of a Christian boy.” The corner of the full lips quirked upward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you were a </span>
  <em>
    <span>man</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he replied and Louis could not help but laugh at his own slip of the tongue. When he met the green eyes again, there was something new there. Dangerously fond, and illusive as it disappeared into thin air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you are not a physician then why do you know how to aid such an ailment?,” he asked and the man wiggled his eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Suppose I may be a witch,” he replied and Louis shook his head to conceal a small smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You very well may be, but that does not answer my question.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does it not?,” the other man asked. “What do you imagine a witch does to bide his time? You doubted my intuitions about this evening’s storm, you deny it possible I am in tune with a higher level of consciousness, and now you say I may not know of healing rituals practiced across faraway lands,” he listed, exasperated. “Do you discredit witches to be nothing but cannibalistic characters of age-old folklore? Children make for a tasty treat, but that is not my only quality.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you admit that you are a witch,” Louis said, shrinking back slowly. The man scoffed at his retreat, standing up suddenly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that all you got from my spiel?,” he asked incredulously. Louis did not answer. The man shook his head and began walking towards the doorway. “Hopeless, you are. And to think I was going to feed you supper..” The mention of food made Louis perk up right away, the scent carried on the air reminding his stomach to grumble. The man turned around again at the sound, looking down at Louis for a moment before sighing. “Fine. You may eat.” Louis hummed happily, going to stand up and once again wincing from the careless weight he placed upon his fragile arm. The man hissed at him, taking a step forward making Louis fall back in reflexive fear. “I will bring your bowl to you! Your lack of forethought is unreal!” Louis pouted at that but said nothing as the man disappeared into the other room. Moments later he returned, a bowl and fork in his hand. He placed the bowl into Louis’s lap and crossed the room once more, sitting in a straw-stuffed chair. He picked up a leather bound book in one hand, a candle in the other, and began reading in silence. Louis watched him for a few moments before looking down at the bowl which rested on his thighs. He used his good hand to pick up the fork and examine the contents of the dish, wrinkling his nose at what he saw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is this?,” Louis asked, not bothering to conceal the light disgust in his tone, but the man did not look up from his reading.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is supper,” he replied in a bored tone, flipping the page. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should like to know what it is I am consuming, especially at the request of a self-proclaimed witch!,” he exclaimed but the other man remained unfazed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I should like to know when beggars became choosers,” he then peered over the top of his book at the heap of a man on his floor. “It is chicken and rice in a green curry sauce.” Louis’s eyebrows knitted together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Curry</span>
  </em>
  <span>?,” he tried out the unfamiliar word in his own mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is a kind of sauce I was taught how to make whilst venturing through the mountains of Thailand,” he explained and Louis blinked at him. He put his book down with a sigh. “Asia. Your people lump it in with the Silk Road of the Far East.” He did not want to admit defeat, but the explanation provided him with clarity, even if delivered with condescension. He looked down at the bowl, pushing the food around before looking back up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you find yourself in Asia? Are you secretly a rich man with a penchant for travel?,” Louis asked and the man picked his book back up to continue reading.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You ask many questions for someone who holds the answers right in front of you.” Neither of them spoke for a while, the sound of the turning pages the only measure of time. Louis watched the candlelight dance across the man’s face, deep in concentration. He finally looked back down at the bowl, and sighed before hesitantly scooping a forkful of the peculiar mixture into his mouth. The carefully spiced concoction exploded into a symphony of new and exciting flavors never brought forth from his own kitchen. Eyes wide with awe, he devoured his supper quickly, each bite bringing him a new wave of bliss. Perhaps if salted pork tasted as good as this, he would not shiver in the winter from a lack of meat on his bones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was so consumed by savoring each bite of the food on his plate that he did not even notice the green eyes that watched him with curious amusement until the bowl was ungraciously licked clean. When he did look up, tongue pressed to the bowl, the green eyes glittered with mirth before he threw his head back in a laugh. “I take it your supper was satisfactory?,” he said around a laugh, wiping amused tears from his eyes. Louis flushed, lowering the empty bowl to the floor beside him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will allow you the flattery of being told you are a marvelous chef, though I assume being as arrogant as you are, you already know this about yourself,” he replied and the man in the chair hummed with a wide smile on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Did you hear that, Father? He’s a marvelous chef! He will wine and dine and care for me!</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he said in a high-pitched voice to mock his involuntary guest and Louis harrumphed in protest. “Oh, lighten up, darling boy. It is your own fault becoming infatuated with a witch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Infatuated! With </span>
  <em>
    <span>you!</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Louis shrieked, cheeks surely glowing bright red at the all too truthful insinuation. “You are beyond salvation if you are that delusional to think I would ever waste my time chasing the tail of darkness looking for light!” The other man’s wide smile remained, and he rested the candle on the table beside him. He was leaned back, completely relaxed, as opposed to Louis, stiff and unmoving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He lies as though I cannot read every thought that has ever flickered through the window of his mind,” he said and Louis paled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You-... You can’t… Surely it is not so…,” he trailed off, stammering nervously as he fought his own brain not to replay every sinful thought he had dreamt up since meeting the beautiful man. He held his gaze for a few moments before bursting into a fit of laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I cannot. But it is reassuring that you are foolish enough to believe me when I say so,” he replied with a cheeky grin and Louis let out a sigh of relief before setting a scowl deep into his features.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are a bloody wretch,” Louis snapped and the green eyes were full of silent laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You seem quite relieved I am not a mind reader for someone who is not infatuated,” he teased and Louis rolled his eyes, laying back down and staring at the ceiling to avoid his gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If not for your dabblings in the occult, surely your vanity would ensure eternal damnation,” Louis sighed and the man hummed noncommittally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe the cannibalism of young children may rank higher than my </span>
  <em>
    <span>devilish</span>
  </em>
  <span> good looks,” he replied and Louis turned his head to look at him, reading his book once again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is not your good looks but how you weaponize them,” Louis replied and a small smile occupied the full lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You agree that I am good looking, then,” he murmured and Louis blushed high on his cheeks. He thought carefully before allowing his next words to escape his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There are some universal truths even </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>am not hard-headed enough to dispute,” he said finally and the man’s eyebrows raised high on his forehead at the proclamation. “You possess an ethereal outward beauty, yes,” he said and the face lit up by the flickering flame softened ever-so-slightly. Louis’s heart skipped a beat. “That is all, though. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Outward</span>
  </em>
  <span> beauty. Inside your soul is black as tar and reeks of desperation to be thought of as much greater than you are.” It burned Louis to see the warmth from the green eyes fizzle out, yet the unbothered playful demeanor remained. Why did he not bleed from the blows to his ego? Louis doubled down. “You are </span>
  <em>
    <span>no one!</span>
  </em>
  <span> You are</span>
  <em>
    <span> nothing! </span>
  </em>
  <span>You are not even worth the breath I </span>
  <em>
    <span>throw away</span>
  </em>
  <span> on you!,” he spat and the man cocked his head thoughtfully, enraging smile still ever-present on his gorgeous face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Such bold words coming from a man whom I dragged in from the snow,” he replied, sizing him up where he lay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why did you take me to this hellish place?,” he demanded and the man put a hand on his heart in faux hurt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hellish indeed, but at least the supper was </span>
  <em>
    <span>marvelous</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he reminded Louis of his previous compliment, intentionally winding him up even further. “I took you under my wing because I adore my admirers. You are my lifeblood.” Louis guffawed, sitting straight up again and trying his best to ignore the shooting pain in his arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>far</span>
  </em>
  <span> from your admirer,” he hissed, narrowing his eyes. The other man piqued a brow, accepting the challenge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that so?,” he asked and Louis nodded once defiantly. “You do not ogle the way the light bounces off my skin in all the softest places you only dream that you could touch?” he asked and Louis felt his entire body light up in invisible flames. He shook his head in a silent lie, fighting the urge to eye his partially exposed chest. “You do not strike my ego lower and lower just to keep my eyes on you?,” he asked and again, Louis shook his head, though his stamina to keep up the charade was growing weaker with every passing second. Truthfully, Louis was completely and utterly intoxicated. “Tell me this, darling boy,” he prefaced a question and Louis blinked once in his best attempt to appear nonplussed. “Who do you lie for when there is no one around to hear your false confessions?” This took Louis aback, expecting another flirtatious dig. He furrowed his brow in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> not here with me?,” he asked and the man nodded slowly before returning his gaze to the book he had abandoned in his lap. The loss of attention left Louis unsteady, aching to have the green eyes raking up his body like a fix of a fatal drug. His face was blank when he spoke again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you admit that you are lying.” Louis did not know how to respond, waving the white flag of surrender with his silence. He simply stared at the beautiful creature where he sat in his rickety chair, eyes trained on the parchment pages of his book. Every time the light flickered, a new portion of skin glimmered in the light. Louis thought the man had many faces, each one more enchanting than the last. He turned a page and let out a small sigh, running a hand through his long curls. Louis thought of their encounter earlier that day, being a breath away from the plush lips he occasionally chewed in astute concentration in his readings. He somehow felt even closer to him in their comfortable silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have a name?,” Louis asked and the green eyes returned their attention to him, and to Louis, it felt like coming home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What kind of question is that?,” the man asked with a piqued brow. “Have you ever met a man without a name?” Louis chose to ignore his sarcastic tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have never met a </span>
  <em>
    <span>witch</span>
  </em>
  <span> if that is the true question you are asking,” he replied and the book returned to the other man’s lap, facedown this time. Louis definitely did not inwardly preen at the sign of attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m actually a cannibalistic demon witch. Perhaps you ought to make sure you have your facts in order before you start accusing others of simple witchcraft,” he said seriously and Louis rolled his eyes. “Of course I have a name. You may call me Lu,” he said, folding his hands on his lap. Louis frowned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lou? As in Louis?,” he asked in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. Lu as in Lucifer,” he replied with a smile and Louis paled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are not the very one…,” he trailed off before shaking his head. “No, it could not be. The Devil surely would not appear on Earth with sparkling green eyes and dimples like that of a cherub.” That earned a coo from the other man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, he thinks of me </span>
  <em>
    <span>cherubic!</span>
  </em>
  <span> You are a romantic little imp. Perhaps I shall let you live,” he said, tilting his head fondly. “No, I am not the Archangel Lucifer. Even if my home is a hellish place by your standards.” Louis felt a twinge of guilt despite his better judgment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your home is not hellish,” he said softly. “Certainly not as hellish as I would have expected from a witch.” He regarded the room around him once more, taking in one gorgeous pink flower in particular. The green eyes watched him study the plant before their owner spoke again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is an orchid,” he said and Louis hummed quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is beautiful,” he replied truthfully. The other man nodded where he sat across the room in agreement, though he only looked at Louis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was entranced by its beauty whilst hiking through the Andes mountains of Peru,” he told him. Louis looked away from the flower, returning his attention to the other man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are a wanderer,” Louis said matter-of-factly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was you that called me a drifter,” he shrugged. “There are many names one could call me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What else may I call you?,” he asked and before the other man could use his intoxicating tongue to weave the innocent question into a web of something more provocative, he quickly spoke again. “You have yet to share your name.” The other man just stared at him for a few moments, the gears visibly turning in his head before he responded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What will you do with this information in the event that I share it with you?” Suddenly, he was guarded. There was no light in the green eyes-- they were closed off and cold. The soft face could have been carved from the hardest stone, regarding Louis with clear suspicion in his visage. Louis was thrown off by the reaction to a simple question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I… I would call you by the name which you tell me,” he replied slowly, choosing his words carefully. The icy face showed no signs of thawing. “I am unaware if I have said something to offend. If I have, I may offer my deepest apologies--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When your father asks how you returned nearly unscathed from a blizzard with no known nourishment or shelter to protect you from the unforgiving elements, what will you tell him?,” he asked and Louis furrowed his brow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have not pondered such conversations as of yet,” he replied, shaking his head. “Though I am unsure as to how this relates to why you refuse to tell me your name.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you know what your father plans to do to the so-called witches of Salem, Louis?,” and Louis just stared at him, waiting for him to continue. “Some will be made to walk off the dock with stones in their pockets, weighing them down until they hit the murky floor and never come back up for air,” he said solemnly. “Some will face a more humane end, hanged for sport at the top of Gallows Hill,” he continued. Louis began to feel nauseous. “Others…,” he trailed off, grimacing before speaking again. “Others should not be so lucky.” He paused again, looking down at his hands, twisting an opal ring round and round his finger. He stilled, staring beyond anything Louis could see, prematurely traumatized. “They will be burned alive.” Louis brought a hand to his mouth to mask the sound that escaped, horrified by the stories described by the green-eyed man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That is barbaric to even speak of!,” Louis cried, not wanting to believe his own father was capable of such atrocities. “My father would never resort to such uncouth practices! He is a holy man! God’s will would never demand someone’s head under these demonic terms!” The other man laughed lowly, not a drop of glee in the melancholy sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are more naïve than I thought, my darling boy,” he spoke softly, like the song of a wounded dove. Louis thought he suddenly looked smaller in this light. Silence settled around the room like a layer of fine dust. Louis hesitated to move, afraid to shatter the fragile moment of rare vulnerability showcased by the other man. Had he always looked this tired?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will not die in vain,” Louis blurted out, and the man was broken from his trance even only temporarily, looking at Louis curiously. “Not by a hand etched from the same stone as mine.”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you may believe your influence higher than where it truly stands,” he said with a small smile before standing up with a sigh, stretching his arms over his head so that his shirt rose from where it was barely tucked into his breeches, exposing the skin of his taut stomach. More black thread was laced there, two laurels framing the trail leading beneath his belt. Louis swallowed thickly, eyes glazing over as a wave of heat washed over him. If he hadn’t thawed from his venture into the night before, he certainly had now. The green eyes caught his gaze but said nothing, bringing his arms back down to his sides. He retrieved his book from where he had set it down, tucking one corner of the page to mark his place before closing it. “I am quite exhausted from saving your skin, so forgive me for not entertaining you further into the night,” he said and Louis fought his own disappointment to force a tight-lipped smile on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Saving my life is entertainment enough,” he replied, earning a laugh from the man. It exploded into the air and covered Louis in glittering confetti. He craved for more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should hope so. Please excuse me,” he said before stepping out of the room. Louis fell back, lying flat. He let out a labored sigh as he stared up at the ceiling, frustrated at the insistent tingling in every corner of his body. He ran over the events of the night, suddenly sitting straight up with wide eyes from horror, remembering his precious Buttercup had run full speed into the night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Buttercup!,” he cried, thinking he was alone to grieve his lost friend. He jumped when he received a response.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We will find her,” the low voice spoke in a smooth, assuring tone, like honey pouring over him, warm and sweet. He looked at the source of the voice and immediately froze, engulfed in an invisible flame. The man stood before him, chocolate curls wild and free, standing in nothing but his breeches. It became clear that his chest and arms were covered in tattoos, so many more than could meet the eye even with only his barely laced up shirts. Louis fish-mouthed for a few moments, struggling to string together any coherent words. He was drunk off the sight in front of him. With every flicker of the candle, he discovered a new work of art on the man’s body. He could not help but wonder if there were even more in places he could not see. If he noticed Louis’s desperate longing, he did not acknowledge it. Instead, he crossed the room and unfolded a quilt to lay over Louis. He said nothing, simply working away. The fabric was warm, surely having spent time over a warming pan. Louis was touched by the thoughtful gesture. “It is no use looking now, for the snow still falls heavy and unwavering in the night. But we will find her,” he finally spoke again. He was so close, the golden skin of his chest inches away as he tucked Louis in. He smelled of fresh tobacco and warm vanilla, spiced and welcoming Louis home. His eyes raked over the many tattoos and settled on one, a cursive G on his shoulder. The man caught him staring and smiled softly. “That one is for my sister, Gemma,” he said quietly. Louis’s eyes flickered between the letter and the green eyes, his good hand rising slowly. The green eyes held his gaze as one large hand engulfed his, causing Louis to gasp in the back of his throat. His hand was led to meet the man’s shoulder, lightly pressed against the warm skin there. Cautiously, Louis ran his fingers over the inked skin, velvety soft. He searched the green eyes for any sign of protest, but came up empty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are close with your sister?,” Louis asked, returning his attention to the chest before him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was,” he said quietly. Louis looked up to see a pained expression on the gorgeous face. His heart broke silently. “I have not heard from her for the better part of a decade outside of dreams and broken pieces of memories,” he said, staring just past Louis at someone no one else could see. “She was one of the unlucky ones.” Louis cocked his head slightly at that, urging him to explain. “She was burned at the stake in 1685. She hid me when they came for us. It is because of her I sit before you now.” Louis did not know what to say, especially as the green eyes filled with tears. He blinked them back before they could fall, but Louis’s heart ached to press tender kisses to his face, wiping the tears away as they painted his face blue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not know her, but I know you,” he said quietly, running his hand still resting on the shoulder across his chest lightly. He slid it lower so that it rested on the butterfly painted across his belly. “And if she was anything like you, it is a shame to know she is gone.” The other man smiled softly, something sad in his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do not know me, darling boy,” he sighed. “There is no one left in this world who truly knows me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would like to, if you’d let me,” Louis spoke before his mind could catch up with his mouth. The green eyes held his gaze for what felt like an eternity, searching for even a hint of malice. He found none. He maintained his guarded features, though a crack in the mask has formed and a flower began to bloom from the cold concrete. It was only for Louis to see. Wordlessly, the man rose, walking across the floor to the doorway. Louis’s hand slid off his chest easily, but felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds on his heart, dejected where it lay in his lap. The man hesitated, turned away from Louis where he stood in the entryway to the room. Louis watched the back of his head, praying he would turn back around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harry,” he said finally and Louis blinked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry?,” he expressed his confusion, lost at the seemingly random outburst.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You asked for my name,” he said, glancing over his shoulder, a playful smile on his lips. “It is Harry.” With that, he promptly exited the room, leaving Louis to allow this revelation to sink in. He fell back, lying down with a thump. His heart raced in his chest, cheeks glowing in the dark. It may be so that he quite liked the witch in these woods. The witch with tattoos that tell tales of valiance and of heartbreak, with a tongue as sharp as a dagger yet as soft as a cloud in the sky, and with a name that tastes like candy where it melts on one’s tongue and sounds like a song: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Louis ran through the woods, brush and twigs cutting into the soles of his bare feet which were numb from the icy ground. He had only the moonlight to guide him, snow still falling heavily all around. Finally, he found himself stumbling into a clearing. Through the roaring winds, he could see a fire burning deeper into the clearing. He used his arm to shield his eyes from the snow as he pushed onward, nearing the roaring flame. As he drew nearer, he saw a large figure hunched over a body which laid across the ground. Large hands with rings of the darkest gemstones tore chunks of hair and flesh from the corpse, the surrounding snow soaked deep crimson from the bloodshed. The chocolate curls looked matted and greasy from where Louis approached from behind, no longer soft and flowing like a silken brook. He let out an inhuman groan, raising goosebumps over every inch of his body. His heart pounded in his chest, and he begged his legs to run far away from the grisly scene, but they trekked forward, as if he had no autonomy over his own body. As he came right upon the scene, he could hear the sickening sound of bones snapping, the chest cavity of the poor soul being opened to the cruel world, rib by stubborn rib.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Louis raised one trembling hand, reaching out in slow motion despite every cell in his body screaming at him to turn around. He gently rested his fingertips on the torn fabric clinging to the beast’s shoulder. The monster turned his head agonizingly slow, and where he had expected to see green eyes, there was nothing. His eyes were completely black, as if only pupil remained. To his horror, it was not Harry’s face at all. He expected to see the witch staring back at him, showing his true self to put the final nail in Louis’s coffin, sealed by unsavory lust. The humanoid figure before him had the face of his father, blood deep beneath his fingernails and dripping down his face. He stumbled backwards, falling on his back and scrambling to get away from him. Despite his better judgment, he looked down at the corpse which his own father had ripped to shreds, and he felt stars begin to explode behind his eyes. His world began to implode.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry!</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he cried hoarsely, but it sounded as though his head was held under a white current rushing in his ears. As his father took one step forward, a ring of fire roared to life around them, flames at least three meters tall where they stood. So this was his fate: to die at the hands of his father, still wet with the blood of the object of his affections, or be burned to death just as…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as Harry had warned him that his father had intended.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Father, please,” Louis pleaded with the shell of a man, or perhaps it was his deepest self, the face behind the mask he had buried miles beneath the surface, finally breaking free. “It is Louis, your only son! Spare me, we are sewn of the same thread!” This seemed to cause the man to pause momentarily, cocking his head slightly as if something had clicked in his head, bringing even an ounce of sense back to his lost mind. Louis broke into a desperate smile then, sobbing tears of hope that he may not die such an ill-fated death. Any crumb of faith he held in his heart dissipated as a smile, rows of sharp teeth dripping with blood, spread wide across the man’s face. It was over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With an animalistic roar, he reached for his throat, surely to tear it out with his bare hands, when Louis jolted awake, sitting straight up with a gasp. He panted heavily, trying and failing to catch his breath. He was drenched in a cold sweat, his undershirt which he slept in clinging uncomfortably to his chest. The fire barely dancing in her dwelling place, and the Sun had only begun to rise, dawn breaking in vibrant red and golds over the horizon. Louis was startled to know he was not alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does he quiver so from nightmares?,” Harry asked him and Louis yelped in surprise. The green eyes peered at him from where their owner sat beside the window. The warm morning light painted the dips of the muscles that moved beneath his skin gold as he brought a cup of tea up to his lips. “I pray you did not wet the bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Must you always sneak up on me?,” Louis snapped impatiently. “It is as though you derive a sick pleasure from seeing me tremble.” Something flashed across the green eyes, but it was quick as a whip, and Louis could not definitively assign it a name. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would not classify sitting still by the comfort of my fire as ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>sneaking up on you’</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he said dismissively. “If you are afraid of this sight, you are easily startled. You certainly have no business being a supposed witch hunter.” Louis felt his stomach turn from the mention of a hunt, horrifying images from his restless sleep flashing across his mind like the firings of a gun. He must have visibly winced, for Harry’s eyebrows drew together ever-so-slightly in concern. “You are not your normal irritating self,” he said, earning a half-hearted sneer from the man who sat on his floor. “Your dreams have robbed you of your peace of mind.” Louis hummed quietly, staring at his own hands. In this light, they looked so much like his father’s. He almost swore they began to turn red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are not evil,” Louis said quietly and Harry did not respond right away, waiting for him to tack on a demeaning comment to reframe his words as a takedown. The comment never came.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose that depends on who you ask,” he said finally, and Louis looked up at him, eyes fixed with an unspoken plea to be straightforward just this once. He took a pause before continuation. “I do not believe I am, no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you are a </span>
  <em>
    <span>witch</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Louis said then, running his good hand through his hair and matting his fingers with white knuckles into the ends as if in an attempt to rip them up from the root. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you are a scared little boy who trembles at even the mention of a witch, yet dreams of a witch’s demise and wakes up with tear-stained cheeks,” he said with a shrug and Louis stared at him, mouth agape in shock. One eyebrow quirked up. “Have I said something to offend?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How--... You know what I have dreamt?,” Louis asked and Harry froze for a moment as if caught in an unsavory act. He averted his eyes towards the fire, and if Louis was not mistaken, a sheepish blush crawled up the back of his neck as he took a long sip of tea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Erm..,” he began to speak but seemed to think better of it. He looked so unbelievably uncomfortable that the smooth, perpetually unbothered man he had come to know appeared as a stranger to him now. “You seemed very restless,” he said quietly, staring into his teacup. “I wanted to make sure you had not further hurt your arm in your sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That does not explain how you have seemingly crept into my dreamscape,” Louis said, watching a wince flash over his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You say that as though I have intentionally encroached upon your deepest privacy,” he said, uncharacteristically stiff where he sat. Louis blinked expectantly at him. He sighed heavily, glancing up at the ceiling as if searching for answers then finally back at Louis, a wary look in his eye. “I do not know how to explain this to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will not know until you try, will you?,” Louis said evenly and Harry hummed, a small smile forming in the place of the hard line pressed there from nerves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come here,” he said and Louis shifted to standing up. He remembered not to put his weight onto his injured arm, which was sore and stiff at his side. Wordlessly, he closed the distance between them, kneeling in front of Harry. Something flickered across his visage when Louis assumed this position, but it was gone in a moment with a lick of his lips. He held out his large hands and Louis glanced between his palms and his eyes. He nodded assuringly, and Louis placed his good hand there gently. Harry blinked, eyes suddenly glazing over and face being wiped blank as he stared past Louis, past the walls that confined them, and into something ethereal. Louis watched him curiously. “You are afraid,” he said softly, a single wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. “Not of me,” he said, blinking once, “but of what may become of me.” Louis paled, his heart sinking to the pit of his stomach but did not dare move.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cannot know this from a touch,” he said, barely above a whisper, yet stared up with wide blue eyes in waiting for Harry to continue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are immature in your father’s eyes. I knew this, as you have the strangest fixation on whether you are perceived as grown. I could feel your insecurity pulsing in your veins the first moment I saw you,” he said and Louis instinctively began to draw his hand away, suddenly deeply self conscious. Harry closed his hands around it to keep him in place, almost reassuring. “You wonder if you will ever be enough for him. You know the answer, though you desperately try to prove otherwise.” Louis sucked in a sharp breath, studying the other man’s blank face closely for any sign of animosity. There was nothing, truly nothing, there. “You miss your mother,” he said softly, a melancholy note in the inflection of his voice. “Oh,” he said then, eyelashes fluttering as a small, pleasant smile bloomed on his face, “she was wonderful. I would miss her, too.” Louis’s eyes welled up with tears, a wave of emotion crashing over him. Just as they were about to spill, he spoke once more. “You are right to think things would be different if she was still around. She knew </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly</span>
  </em>
  <span> who your father was. Things would be better if we did not lose her so soon.” Louis tore his hand away and brought it up to his face, shuddering around a sob coming from deep within his chest. Harry blinked a few times as if his soul was recalibrating inside his body, then back at Louis with nervous expectancy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You--... You know this from just touching my hand?,” Louis asked after a long pause in the conversation. Harry nodded as he twisted his rings around his fingers to keep his hands busy. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>How?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have no clear answer to that question,” he shrugged. “It is something I have always been able to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You told me you could not read minds,” Louis said accusingly and Harry frowned at his sharp tone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot,” Harry said with a huff. “I cannot hear your thoughts ring through my head. I feel what you feel,” he explains and even as he says it, there is great discomfort on his face as though he would rather be talking about anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you know who I was when we met?,” Louis asked. “You were no less than a meter’s distance from me at all times.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Touch simply heightens the connection,” Harry explained, now looking down at his hands where he twisted his rings, glittering in the light of the steadily rising Sun. “Some feelings are loud, just like thoughts. Those I can pick up on even with distance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that how you knew I was distressed in my sleep?,” Louis asked and Harry nodded sheepishly, looking up through his eyelashes. His gaze left Louis breathless for a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It woke me up,” Harry admitted with a shy laugh. “I’m not used to sleeping under the same roof as someone else. Your dreams began to leak into mine, and I was awoken by your panic which in turn became </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> panic. After I came out to check on you, I could not go back to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you watched over me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I watched over you,” Harry said quietly. Neither of them spoke for a minute. Louis held his gaze while he processed this revelation, and then it dawned on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that how you found me in the storm?,” he whispered and Harry winced as if the memory was painful for him to relive. He nodded. “What did it feel like?” He took a long pause to choose his words carefully, the gears visibly turning in his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were haughty as you left, thinking I was only doubting your abilities. Then you were nervous,” his entire body was tense as if he could feel it all again. “Then… you were scared. You were so scared,” he murmured. “Then you were cold. And you only got colder. And then…,” he trailed off before clearing his throat and shaking his head, attempting to compose himself. “Then I felt nothing. And that is when I thought you were gone.” Louis swallowed around the lump in his throat, tears pricking the corners of his eyes and threatening to fall. Quickly, he blinked them away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you know where to find me if you felt nothing?” The corner of Harry’s mouth quirked upward and his eyes twinkled with something warmer than Louis was used to from him, something beyond lust or even fondness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was following long before you got cold.”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>✥</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Louis finally returned home, the Sun high in the sky, it was to the rejoiced cries of his sisters bursting through the door and running into his arms, tackling him in the snow. </span>
  <span>Félicité shook with desperate sobs that racked her whole body, arms wrapped around his waist so tight he feared he may pop. Charlotte had fallen with them to the ground but noticed the surge of pain on his face when he applied her weight to his left arm. She was not rendered quite as useless as their youngest sister, and though he would never bring it up, Louis saw the tears glistening at the corners of her eyes. She sat up with a worried frown, looking down at him with concern burning bright in her wide blue eyes. Louis used his good arm to tuck Félicité into his side, pressing an affectionate kiss to the top of her head. She buried her face in the fabric of his coat and sniffled around a broken sob. “We thought you were dead! Father told us you would likely never return home! We thought we would find you in the Spring after the snow melts. Oh, Louis, we thought you were gone. I thought you were gone,” she choked on the insistent lump in her throat, clutching at his clothes as if to pull him closer. A wave of guilt washed over him. He had spent the night building escapist fantasy lands around a man with green eyes and a dimpled smile beside the comfort of a warm fire whilst his sisters prematurely grieved the loss of their only brother. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is all okay now, Fizz,” he whispered her childhood pet name with lips still pressed to her head. He carded his hand through her hair to soothe her manic cries. “I am here, safe and sound. Do not grieve for me when I am with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We were sure you had fallen victim to the storm,” Charlotte spoke suddenly. Louis looked up to meet her eyes, shining with unfallen tears. “I waited by my window, up half the night, just praying you might burst through the door. Where were you?” Louis had expected this question, but it still threatened to knock the wind out of him. He did not want to lie, but he felt as though he had not been given the choice. Internally he sorted through the many different tales he wove on his journey home, flipping through until he decided upon one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-- A tree. There was a tree in the forest,” he blurted out and immediately cursed himself when Charlotte furrowed her brow at his response. Even Félicité stirred from where she rested against his chest, sniveling as she peered up at his face to hear his story. He bit the inside of his lip nervously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A tree?,” Charlotte questioned, suspicion trickling into her voice as her eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly. Louis nodded feverishly, holding his ground despite her doubt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. It was huge, a pine tree so massive that I was able to shield myself from the snow behind its trunk. It was at least two meters wide,” he lied, fighting to keep his tone as even as possible. Charlotte pursed her lips, searching his eyes for signs of deception before Félicité piped up again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are so brave, Brother,” she said, hugging him tighter. She managed to pull the sleeve of his shirt on the other side of his chest with her, applying pressure in just the right place to make him cry out in pain. She looked up at him with wide eyes, iron grip still bending his injured arm like a twig ready to snap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Félicité, let him go! You are hurting him!,” Charlotte shouted, and the young girl scurried backwards, eyes full of fear as though she may have broken her only brother. “Louis, what is it? Are you hurt?” He grit his teeth, trying to compose himself as a bead of sweat formed on his brow from the dull throbbing pain in his forearm. “Where does it hurt?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m okay, Charlotte,” he told her with a strained laugh, sitting up in the snow. “It is only a fracture. I will survive. I just ask that you help me up.” Charlotte quickly obliged, scrambling to her feet and pulling her brother up with his good hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Louis. I-- I did not know,” Félicité stammered, darling blue eyes filling with tears. “I did not mean to hurt you.” One stray tear fell, rolling down her round cheek like that of an angel in a Renaissance painting. His heart ached.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fizz, it is </span>
  <em>
    <span>okay</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Of course you did not know,” he said, kneeling so that they were eye level with each other. “Do not apologize for loving me. You may start to sound like Father.” She let out a broken laugh then, sniffling as she wiped her eyes. “Okay?,” he said softly and she nodded with a sniff. He pressed a kiss to her cheek that earned him a giggle before he stood up, holding her small hand in his as the three of them walked towards the house. He heard her before he saw her, Marjorie crying out his name when she spotted them through the window.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>LOUIS!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” The door flew open, the motherly servant ushering them inside. She would never admit it, but tears shone in her bright brown eyes. Louis made a mental note to tease her about it later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning, darling Marjorie,” he greeted her with a smile and she pulled him in for a hug before anyone could warn her of his condition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Marjorie, no! His arm!</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Charlotte cried as her brother hissed in pain. The woman immediately pulled back, worry flooding her features. Louis blinked away the stars from his vision. “He fractured his arm during the storm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fractured his arm?,” Marjorie said, eyebrows knitting together. “Honey, how on Earth did you manage that?,” she asked, leading him into the foyer. “We need to get some warm clothes on you. </span>
  <em>
    <span>STAN!</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she barked, and a few moments later, his old friend came jogging into the room. He had dark circles under his eyes as if he had not slept, his hair uncombed and sticking up in all directions. Louis swallowed around the lump in his throat when he watched realization dawn on his face, eyes welling up with tears. “Go get him fresh clothes, he must be freezing--” Stan ignored her, rushing forward to embrace his friend in a hug. Louis couldn’t find it in himself to mind the gnawing pain it caused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dear God, Louis, we thought we had lost you,” he said breathlessly, words coming out shaky in his throat. “I thought I would never see you again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” he replied softly, pulling away to meet his eyes with a watery smile, “you called me Louis.” He managed a laugh before moving in to hug him again before Marjorie stepped in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s hurt, Stan,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. He looked at Louis, panic-stricken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay? Is he okay?,” he turned to Marjorie with pleading eyes. She smiled softly at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He will be. He tells us he has fractured his arm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did this happen?,” he inhaled sharply, looking at Louis. He could have cried from how concerned his friend looked for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried riding home through the storm,” he explained, wincing at the memory. “I could barely see through the snow and Buttercup had grown quite agitated by the conditions. A branch fell and hit her about the snout, and she bucked me off into the snow.” His audience gasped in horror on cue, and he almost felt like a valiant hero for a moment. Until a voice came from behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then what happened, noble Louis?,” his father spoke from where he leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. When Louis met his eye, he saw a challenge there. “After you disposed of </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> horse in the forest, what did you do?” The energy had shifted upon his arrival as though he had sucked all of the air out of the room. Louis cleared his throat before responding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I… I sought shelter at the base of a pine tree,” he recited the story he had conjured up for Charlotte’s peace of mind. His father hummed noncommittally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A pine tree? That is very peculiar,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “This is a birchwood forest.” Louis lifted his chin a notch, committing to his lie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have spent enough time in these woods over the last few days to know there is more than one kind of tree in its depths,” he replied evenly. The rest of the room watched them as if they were waiting for a pin to drop. His father held his gaze for what felt like a very long time, waiting for him to be the first one to break. He never did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So glad to have you home, Son,” his father spoke finally, but the normally fond and devoted sentiment came out devoid of any feeling at all. Louis smirked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure you are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why don’t you come with me to my study?,” he proposed, taking Louis by surprise. “I am chomping at the bit to hear your tale of survival. Spare no details,” he said and Louis paled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is injured, he must rest,” Marjorie tried to save him but his father did not even pay her a passing glance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He can rest after a conversation with his father.” The room was still, waiting for Louis to respond. He felt as though he had no choice. He nodded and a serpentine smile spread across his father’s ruddy face. “Wonderful. Come now, Louis.” Louis glanced over his shoulder as he followed his father down the hallway to find an audience just as frightened as he was. Dread pooled in his gut as he was led towards the room he was warned to never enter, now invited with seemingly open arms. His father retrieved a brass key from his pocket, unlocking the door and holding it open for Louis to enter. He walked in and took in the surroundings of the unfamiliar room in his home. The walls were the same whitewashed color that remained constant through the rest of the house. It was barren besides a desk and a chair in the middle of the room. Louis wondered if he only locked it to maintain control. The door clicked behind them, and Louis felt his stomach turn with the lock as his father sealed the exit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure what else there is to recount,” Louis blurted out, turning to face his father. “I have told all of the exciting parts, bar me trying not to freeze through the night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, tell me how exactly you managed to survive through the bitter cold. To say the conditions were unforgiving is quite the understatement, would you not agree? Perhaps you could enlighten me as you are the one who spent the entire night on the frozen ground,” his father said, clasping his hands behind his back while holding his gaze. He paced slowly, back and forth, like a shark circling its prey before going in for the kill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I huddled for warmth at the base of the tree. Its trunk was wide enough to block the winds,” Louis said matter-of-factly and his father nodded slowly as if deep in thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It must have been quite a sight. You do not see trees of that size in this region often,” he remarked, narrowing his eyes at Louis. “Ever, even.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s what made it visible through the snow,” Louis spoke evenly, choosing his words carefully. This felt more like an interrogation than a simple conversation. “It stuck out like a sore thumb.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It certainly would in a forest known solely for birch,” his father said, looking out the window at the woods behind the house. “Suppose we venture into those woods again. Do you think you could take me to this miracle tree? Seeing as it troubles with blending into its surroundings as you admit that it does.” Louis swallowed thickly, nervous sweat beading on his brow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is doubtful. The snow makes everything look the same under her blanket. I could hardly tell which direction was home,” he replied but his father only laughed low in his chest, sitting down in his chair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How convenient,” his father said, smiling wide. “I heard you have injured your arm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I fractured it,” Louis nodded once, bringing his good hand to cover the arm instinctually.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That is an interesting choice of words,” his father said thoughtfully, something menacing glinting in his eyes. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Fracture</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Such a technical term for a boy with no medicinal knowledge.” Louis broke into a full sweat now, feeling bare under his father’s microscope. He did not respond, only shrugged. His father stared at him for a few moments before speaking again. “Let me see, then.” Louis gave him a quizzical look and his smile went acidic. “Show me your arm.” Louis looked at him with eyes wider than saucers, frozen where he stood. “Well?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-- I don’t think--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was not </span>
  <em>
    <span>asking</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” his father said, smile long gone from his face. Louis paused, waiting for him to retract the order, but he only stared back, eyes colder than the snow that nearly killed his son. With a curt nod, Louis slowly began rolling up the sleeve of his good arm, biting back the tears that pricked the corners of his eyes from the throbbing pain that came from exerting his injury. “No, Louis,” his father said, voice suddenly sharp as a dagger, “you know which arm I am referring to.” Louis looked at his father, silently begging him to let this go. He never was a merciful man. He twisted his eyes shut tight, taking a sharp inhale and slow exhale. He opened his eyes and looked down, slowly undoing the button at his wrist and rolled up the sleeve gingerly. There was his arm, bruises of deep purples and greens, and Harry’s bandages wrapped around it. His father stared with a stoic face, silence falling upon the room for what felt like hours. Louis’s heart pounded so fast it is all he could hear, beating against his eardrums like a hostage begging to be let out of its torture chamber. “I take it the tree doubled as a medical supply?” Louis kept his gaze down, not daring to look up and meet his father’s eye. “Do you think of me a fool, Louis?” Louis bit his tongue, a million different things he wanted to respond with rushing through his mind. Instead, he simply shook his head. “Then why do you lie to me so boldly?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not lie--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not nearly as stupid as you clearly believe I am,” his father spat, standing up from his chair suddenly. Louis cringed from the sound of the wooden legs scraping against the floor from the force. “What are you playing at, Son?,” he asked and Louis looked up at him, eyes as icy as his opposer’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have done nothing,” he said in a low voice and his father cackled, the coldest sound he had ever heard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You really do take me for the village idiot,” he sighed, shaking his head as he lowered himself back down into his chair. “I do not know what it is you think you are doing, but I sent you into those woods with a clear purpose. That purpose was to identify a witch in preparation for his capture, not to </span>
  <em>
    <span>befriend</span>
  </em>
  <span> him.” Disgust rang clear in his voice. Louis felt the tips of his ears burn in an angered flush.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You are speaking nonsense!</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Louis cried and his father’s face turned bright red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Am I, Louis? Am I speaking nonsense?,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” his father bellowed, standing up once again. The chair was knocked over completely with the force of his abrupt movement. “You come home after a blizzard weaving stories of sleeping in the snow with dry clothes and combed hair. You visit those woods saying there is no witch in sight yet the woman who has been visiting with him was seen trekking into the trees shortly before you arrived home.” That made Louis stop, something ugly twisting in his gut like a vine that eats away at the foundation of a home, ivy crawling and turning his heart a different shade of his beloved green: envy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She is still venturing into the woods?,” he asked, a different kind of interest taking over. His father nodded slowly and Louis swallowed around the lump in his throat, looking out the window at the trees. “Why would she still--… Has she said what these visits are meant to accomplish?” His father watched him closely, something like hatred rooted deep in his visage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know the extent of your relationship with this witch, and it is becoming clear to me that I do not want to,” his father spoke quietly, each word like a turn of the knife in Louis’s side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>There is no relationship to speak of!</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Louis cried, but his voice came out much more desperate than he had intended, as if he were begging his father and himself to believe his cries. His father only held up his hand, signaling for him to stop. He pressed his lips into a hard line, allowing his father to continue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What I do know is that if you do not handle this situation, I will take over,” he said and it sounded like a warning shot. Louis paled at the look in his cold blue eyes; it looked like evil. “You do not want me to be the one who handles this, because I will </span>
  <em>
    <span>handle it.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Louis held his gaze, his own hardening to steel. “Do you understand?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Louis spoke through gritted teeth, knuckles white where his fists were balled at his sides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” his father said with a single nod, clasping his hands in front of him. “Go on, then. Have your rest, our noble survivor.” Wordlessly, Louis excused himself from the room, turning the lock and stepping into the hallway. He closed the door behind him with a click, standing beside the door until he heard the turn of the lock from the other side. Quietly, he padded down the corridor and retreated into his bedroom. There, he laid for hours, staring at the ceiling. When he finally drifted off to sleep, he dreamt of the object of his affections being burned alive, and his own father lighting the fuse.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Servitude is still servitude if you are only a slave to temptation.” Louis looked up at the vision of a man, like a beam of sunlight shining through jagged twigs that slice a tender cheek in wild chase through the winter wood. He stood, combing his fingers through beloved Buttercup’s golden mane, eyeing Louis closely. His teasing smile faded around the edges and something dangerously curious flickered in his eyes. “You have come back to me so soon, as devout as a martyr.” Louis felt an itch crawl up his spine. He was trying to figure him out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good day, Harold,” he said coolly and Harry crinkled his nose in amusement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, what a shame. Here I was thinking we had forged a twisted friendship despite our differences,” he sighed. “Why do you address me with such formality?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see you have found my horse,” he ignored Harry’s inquiry, bowing shallowly as a sign of his gratitude. “I must thank you for that. It will make my journey home much easier on my tired feet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe this is </span>
  <em>
    <span>your father’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>horse,” he replied pointedly. Louis felt a sharp wave of anger rise in his chest, but he coaxed the tide to calm before it could cause more damage than he could afford to repair. Harry looked down to watch his own hand detangle the horse’s flowing hair. “Some may think of me a landlord, being that you are more often here than in your so-called home. Shall I begin to charge you dues?” The tips of Louis’s ears burned in a warm flush.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose then you must have many tenants,” Louis’s tongue betrayed him, words like daggers thrown at the other man as though he wore a target on his chest. His hand slowed in its motion and the green eyes flickered up to meet blue. Louis swallowed around the lump that had risen in his throat, lifting his chin a notch to stand his ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that an accusation of some kind?,” he asked and Louis shrugged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not an accusation so much as a request for clarity,” he replied and Harry raised one eyebrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When was it decided that I answer to you?,” Harry asked, tilting his head in silent question. “I do not recall agreeing to stand trial.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Members of my father’s congregation have witnessed a woman venturing into these woods in the direction of this very place,” Louis said and paused before continuing. Harry blinked, seemingly unfazed. “It seems as though she has been visiting with someone in the forest. Someone who gives her vials of potions and trimmings of foreign herbs which she stuffs into her coat pockets for safekeeping.” Louis waited for Harry to speak but he never did. He only watched Louis with a steely gaze, face as hard as stone. “Do you know anyone with access to such things, Harry?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you not say what it is that you truly want to say?,” Harry snapped, voice sharp as a blade and colder than the winter chill. Louis fought a flinch from the way it cut through the left side of his chest with sickening ease. “If I believe you are asking in earnest, I may choose to humor you with a response. Be warned, however,” his lips spread into a sharp smile, canine teeth sparkling in the afternoon sun, “I have the strangest intuition. It is as though I can </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel </span>
  </em>
  <span>when I am being deceived.” Louis collected his thoughts, begging his traitorous heart to stop its insistent pounding in his chest. He took a deep breath before he spoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why was she here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who said that she was?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Louis sighed in exasperation. “Please.”  Harry searched his eyes for a moment before speaking again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>who is asking? Or is it your father?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This has nothing to do with him,” Louis spoke quickly, impatience gradually creeping into his voice as the other man carefully stalled. “I know she was here, Harry. I am not the fool you think of me.” Harry scoffed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Says the Christian boy who lusts after a witch. Certainly not a fool. Only an </span>
  <em>
    <span>idiot</span>
  </em>
  <span> would find himself in such a position.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I do not lust after you</span>
  </em>
  <span>!,” Louis cried, inwardly cringing at the desperation in his tone. Harry hummed, a small smile occupying his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My intuition has kicked in,” he said in a low voice, teasing flame flickering in his eyes. “I sense deception.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why was she here?,” Louis asked again, knuckles white where his fists were balled at his sides. Harry shook his head angrily, turning on his heel to walk towards the crimson door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you so obsessed with matters that do not concern you?,” he snapped. Louis felt his own rage begin to boil in his chest at the indignant response.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know she has been here more than once,” he said and Harry stopped when he reached the door, turning to face him with his hand on the brass knob. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Remind me why this implicates you in any way?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would suppose she is the fairest lady in all of Salem Village, no? You could charm Her Majesty the Queen if you made a valiant effort,” Louis blurted out, immediately biting his tongue for betraying him. Harry looked as though he had whiplash.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I—,” Louis began to speak then cut himself off, struggling to regain his composure after his peevish outburst. Realization suddenly dawned on Harry, eyes bright with a sadistically delighted smile spreading across his face like wildfire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>jealous, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Louis?,” he said softly and Louis felt his face burn in a rose blush. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he spoke between his teeth, jaw clenched tight. The smug smile only shined brighter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you walk all this way to throw a fit on my doorstep, blinded by envy? Did you lie awake, brooding over the image of me and a faceless woman intertwined into the night?” He walked slowly towards Louis as he spoke, each step raising a new set of goosebumps across Louis’s skin. The closer he got, the more static electricity pooled between them, palpable in the air where they stood. “Since when is it that I belong to you?” Louis’s mouth went dry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never said that you do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you picturing me with her right now?,” he whispered, stopping less than a foot away, so close that Louis could feel the warmth of his skin radiating in waves, enveloping him in a phantom embrace. “Are her hands tangled in my hair? Do my lips stray below her neckline? Does she scream in ecstasy as I make love to her?” Louis let out a small gasp at the back of his throat at that, knees threatening to buckle underneath him, a heated flush causing his clothes to cling uncomfortably tight on his body. Harry moved closer, only a breath away. The colors of his eyes separated into infinite greens and golds like a kaleidoscope of butterfly wings fluttering in a great flight straight to the pit of Louis’s stomach. “Do you wish it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> who lie beneath me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not lust after you,” Louis croaked, a barely audible whisper. Harry chuckled, bringing a hand up to cup Louis’s jaw, tilting it upwards so he could feel the warmth of the velveteen lips reaching out towards his own. His breath stuttered in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you deceive me, darling boy?” His breath was warm and soft where it spread across Louis’s skin causing him to shiver, eyelashes fluttering. “Do you forget you cannot lie to me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not lie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are the most stubborn man I have ever known,” he chuckled, snaking an arm around Louis’s lower back and pulling him in so their bodies pressed flush together. “It is intoxicating.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It sounds as though </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>are the one who lusts after </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Louis quipped, breathless as he counted each eyelash outstretched from green eyes like praising arms to the sky. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have never said anything to the contrary,” Harry said, leaning down to brush their lips together, feather light. Louis gasped softly at the fleeting contact. “But it is </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>who drives yourself mad with false prophecies of a man you claim to hate being touched by another.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There is a fine line between love and hate,” Louis replied and Harry cocked an eyebrow with a shimmering smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Love?</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he said, disbelieving. Louis shrugged. “I would say the line between love and lust is a touch more defined.” Louis slid his hands up Harry’s chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt in his good hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” he breathed before pulling Harry forward by his shirt, closing the distance between them, falling together like the final grains of sand in an hourglass that had been flipped the second he had awoken into this world. The rare moments in his life he had allowed himself to imagine this moment, it was shrouded in a veil of shame, as if the heavy darkness suffocating him from the inside had leaked, painting everything he touched the shade of the deepest midnight. But this felt like summertime, as though the golden sparkling light of the Sun was being breathed into his lungs and immortalizing this moment in his mind as the first time he had ever felt truly whole. Every broken piece of himself he hid from the world healed in the sunlight, glittering around the mended edges, beautiful because the stitches that repaired them told stories in their embroidery, of flowers growing through the cracks of broken bones and hearts. Kissing Harry was building a forever home, plastering the walls with paintings of green eyes and teasing smiles, setting fire to his shame like a bad memory whose only purpose now was to keep him warm, and belonging. He realized then, this felt like </span>
  <em>
    <span>belonging</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What does it mean when you must part ways to return home, </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> is when you feel homesick?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry pulled back then, pupils blown wide, sparkling and wild. “Would you like to come in?” Louis felt the gleeful laugh bubble up in his throat from his heart which danced in his chest like an overdue celebration. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There are seldom things in this world that I would like more.” The stars in Harry’s eyes twinkled impossibly bright at that, smile all but bursting at the seams. He took Louis’s hand in his, grasp so gentle as if he were afraid it may turn to dust if he squeezed too tight. He led them inside, Louis closing the door behind them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Could I get you some tea? I was just about to fix supper for myself when I sensed your approach,” he suggested politely, yet contradicted his words with his actions as he allowed Louis to push him towards the leather chair beside the fire where he had watched over him just a night ago. Louis shoved him into the chair, climbing on top of him and straddling his hips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, thank you,” Louis said, running his hands over Harry’s chest, holding his mystified gaze. “I just want </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” He dropped his head down, tangling one hand in Harry’s curls, pressing their lips together. Harry sighed wistfully into his mouth, kissing him deep and soft. The movement of his tongue was languid, sweet and achingly slow like honey seeping past his lips into Louis’s. He slid his hands up Louis’s thighs, sinking his fingertips into the flesh of his ass, causing a breathy moan from the other man. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, darling boy?,” he whispered between kisses, breath hitching in his chest when Louis grinded down into his lap, pulsing need sending an electric shock up and down Harry’s spine. Louis slid his hands down Harry’s chest until he reached the buckle of his breeches. He smirked against his lips as he felt Harry take a sharp inhale. It was to Louis’s surprise, however, when a ring-clad hand covered his own in their precarious position. Louis pulled back just enough to meet the green eyes, still desperately wild, but slightly panicked. He furrowed his brow in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do--.. Do you not want me?,” he asked in a small voice. He could have cringed at the hurt that rang crystal clear through the air, as though he had handed Harry a glass vase with his heart tucked away carefully inside just for him to let it slip between his fingers, exploding into a million glittering pieces scattered across the floor. He pulled his hands away slowly, folding them under his arms protectively. He felt awfully bare in this light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I want you,” Harry said quickly, shaking his head feverishly as if the thought of Louis thinking otherwise drove him halfway to madness. Louis’s sudden headache cleared up just a little bit. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then…?,” he trailed off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have never been touched by another,” Harry spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully as he said them. “I do not want you to confuse fleeting lust with… something more,” he said, something like pain bleeding in his eyes for just a moment before he averted his gaze to regain his composure. “I am afraid that you will regret this after the fact...,” he said quietly, turning his head to look back at Louis, a sad song written in the worry lines between his brows. “... That you will regret </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Louis said breathlessly, heart breaking in his chest as he cupped the forlorn face in his hands. “I have waited for this my whole life. I did not know what I was waiting for, just that I would know it when I saw it,” he said, eyes glowing like a lighthouse on the other side of a vast sea with the sharpest riptide, sinking its teeth into the hearts of sailors with destinations unbeknownst to them. Harry watched him with an awe-inspiring curiosity, as though he were afraid that he would wake up from a dream and Louis would simply vanish into thin air. “I knew him when I saw him. There is no universe where I could awaken from my slumber and not ache to feel you there beside me.” Harry’s eyes twinkled, full of stars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was right about you,” he said softly and Louis leaned down to press their foreheads together, watching the butterfly wings glimmer in the fading afternoon light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Were you?,” he asked and Harry hummed affirmatively.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I did not know better, I would think of you a poet,” he said, gingerly drawing Louis’s hands away from his face to interlace their fingers between their chests. “A romantic of the hopeless variety without a single doubt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you know better?,” Louis asked, kissing him softly, chaste and pure. Harry smiled against his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not certain that I do anymore.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Louis sat on a wicker chair wrapped in a wool blanket, watching his lover make a pot of tea with rapt attention. Everything he did was enchanting, the way his hands moved so gracefully made even the most mundane task something awe-inspiring. When the kettle began to whistle and Harry poured some into a cup, Louis graciously accepted it as it was placed into his hands. Harry poured himself a cup and sat in the chair on the other side of the fire, seemingly content with the silence. It was comfortable, like a mother’s hug enveloping them, protecting them from the harsh winter winds just outside the door. Louis always had a knack for ruining a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> she here, if you do not mind me asking?,” Louis broke the veil of silence and Harry blinked lazily before taking a long sip from the steaming cup in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your mind is still occupied by this frivolous happenstance?,” he mused and Louis frowned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would not call it happenstance seeing that she has entered these woods on more than a few occasions.” Harry sighed, looking into his cup as though an answer would appear there. None came. Louis could see the cogs turning in his head as he patiently waited for an answer. After some time, he finally spoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her name is Sarah Osborne,” Harry said and Louis’s frown deepened, recognizing the name immediately upon hearing it. She was an older woman, a widow. He did not have any personal connection to her, but he knew of her as he knew most villagers of Salem. He waited for Harry to continue. “She has not been well for quite some time. She came to me seeking a cure for her ailments, having heard I was a healer,” he explained quietly, then paused briefly. “I could not offer her a cure, only ways to alleviate the pain. That is why she has been a frequent guest of mine.” Louis felt shame weigh heavily on his heart, so much so he wished the chair he sat in would swallow him whole and he would simply disappear. None such thing happened, though he ached for it to be so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are a healer?,” he asked dumbly and Harry raised an eyebrow with a playful smirk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am unsure. Tell me, how is your arm?” Neither of them spoke for a while, Louis searched his brain for an ample way to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>I am so sorry to have doubted you</span>
  </em>
  <span> without uttering the humiliating words. Finally, he found it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come into Salem with me,” he said and Harry nearly choked on his tea, sputtering as he lowered the cup from his mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come again?,” he struggled to say between coughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Join me on my journey home,” Louis repeated himself, a smile spreading across his face as hope filled his chest with the breath of summertime. “They fear you only because they misunderstand you. Surely if they knew you as I do they would adore you just the same.” Summer was cut short by the cold snort that Harry let out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, yes. Then your father and I will frolic through the garden weaving daisy chains for one another to wear in our hair,” he mocked the hope Louis had so foolishly let shine so brightly in his eyes. “Tell me you are not so daft to believe the false prophecies you preach to me.” Louis’s cheeks burned as he glowered at the suddenly cruel man that sat before him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you mock me so?,” he cried. “If they knew you to be a healer they might welcome you. Salem Village has been in need since our physician relocated to Boston this past Harvest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see. Did they chase him out with threats of torture and certain death, too?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why must you always see the worst in people?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why must </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> never see what you wish not to be there?,” Harry snapped as he stood from his chair. He paused, watching Louis with something like resentment in his eyes for a moment before turning to walk away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that why you are a wanderer?,” Louis called after him in his retreat. He stopped then, awaiting him to finish the thought. “Because you run away when the road ahead is no longer so easily climbed?” He chuckled at that, nodding slowly as he let the words wash over him and sink into his brain, deep into the chilled cores of his tired bones. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He speaks such bold tongues for a boy so out of his depth.” Louis grit his teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not a boy,” he spoke in a low voice. Harry hummed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you say so to convince me or yourself?,” he asked in a voice woven from the fabric of faux-innocence. Slowly, he turned on his heel to face Louis. The gorgeous face looked almost demonic in the flickering light of the fire. “I would say you lie for your father but he is not here to disbelieve. Do you fear he is everywhere? That he knows each thought before it is fully developed in your mind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not a fool. My father is but a man, not a mindreader.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never said otherwise,” Harry shrugged. His face was blank, completely void of all feeling. It made Louis feel sick to his stomach. “Perhaps you are afraid that he knows you so well because you have become him a million times and that petrifies you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> like my father,” Louis blurted out, shaking as he did. Harry cocked his head ever-so-slightly, eyebrows knit together in a blasphemous mockery of concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So sorry darling boy. Have I struck a nerve?” He took a step towards Louis who struggled not to cower in his wake. “You have forgotten I know your feelings as my own. You cannot lie to me, though you try. Tell me, when did you first realize your father was not of kind heart? Was it before or after you found his face staring back at you in the mirror?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you weave these twisted tales? Is your only purpose to wound my pride?,” Louis put his tea aside, standing from the chair. He trembled from a mix of both anger and nerves. Harry had never looked more at ease.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you lie to me, confess your undying affection for me, just to inquire after parading me into your town like a prized hog ready for the slaughter?,” Harry retorted, and Louis looked stricken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not say that you doubt my affections. Do not hurt me this way,” Louis said softly, a broken noise. Harry did not waver.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You hold no affections for me. None true, any way,” Harry hissed and Louis felt as though he had been smacked across the face. “If you truly cared for me you would not ask such a thing of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ask </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span> of you? To help a community in need rather than live in solitude while you hoard the gift of wellness? Oh, what a pity! How selfish of me to ask so much of you. My apologies my love, I can promise you it will never happen again!,” Louis cried, hand on his heart to assert how solemn he was in honoring this bitter pledge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think of me an idiot if I am to believe you ask that I follow you out of concern for your townspeople. It is shameful how you lie as though it is simply your nature. What would the pastor think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you think so lowly of me, why do you invite me into your home, bestow kisses unto my cheek? If I am truly this monster you make of me, why do you covet me so?,” Louis turned the tables before he could attain the upperhand, but he simply shrugged, a sharp smile twinkling in the dim twilight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lustful creatures, witches are.” This sent a chill up Louis’s spine, which he did his very best to disregard. “But what is your excuse?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need not have one being that you have pulled these accusations from the dark corners of your most paranoid mind!,” Louis replied indignantly and Harry laughed, so cold Louis shivered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to know what I think?,” Harry asked lowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you hesitate in telling me if I were to decline?,” Louis asked but was ignored.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you truly believe in the validity of your affections. I feel that your intent is true,” he nodded and Louis softened slightly. “But it is not me who is the receiver of your love. It is the image of me you have constructed in your mind.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Surely now you speak in tongues! An </span>
  <em>
    <span>image</span>
  </em>
  <span> of you? Do you not stand before me, skin and bones, as I before you? Does your heart not beat as mine does? If I were to cut you would you not bleed as I do? </span>
  <em>
    <span>An image?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Are you but a figment of my imagination?,” Louis exclaimed, knitting his fingers through his hair and gripping the strands with knuckles white from frustration. Harry only sighed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In your mind, I am pressed and folded to fit into the box of your life. Never out of turn unless in the good humors of yourself, and packaged so nicely to impress the high societies you ache to be a part of. In your head, we stroll arm in careless arm into town, and your people welcome me with gratitude despite the blood of my sisters still warm where it has spilled on the ground where we stand only hours earlier. In this fairytale you have fallen victim to believing, does your father call me ‘son’?,” Harry had taken a few slow, calculated steps as his words slashed at Louis’s pride like an ever-sharp blade, and absent-mindedly, Louis had matched those steps moving backwards. He did not realize he had moved at all until he nearly fell back into his chair. “When you picture your life moving forward am I another smiling face in the background? Tongue still unless called upon? So kind, so gentle, so palatable for your parishioners. So very much not me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I to blame for wishing the object of my affections could make himself uncomfortable for even a moment if it meant being with me? If your aim is to make me bear the cross of guilt for this offense, your attempts are futile. All I ask of you is to branch out from your loneliness and try to meet me where I stand,” Louis balled his fists at his sides, tight to keep from trembling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “No, I suppose in those terms it is I who sounds wicked. But tell me this, my darling boy,” Harry said, taking another step forward. Louis stood his ground despite the pounding of his heart rushing in his ears. “If you love me as you so fervently claim you do, why is it that you wish to alter the very fiber of my being to fit your own expectations? Does that not disprove the very point which you make?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forgive me for begging not to choose between head and heart,” Louis spoke between gritted teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have never forgiven a soul who has wronged me. I am not about to start now,” he snapped, taking another step forward to which Louis finally cracked, flinching at the sudden movement. Harry stopped then, confusion flashing across his face before realization, and eventually pain. “Why do you cower in my wake?,” he asked softly, a sad song that Louis wished to never hear again. But the moment of weakness passed swiftly, replaced by a shade of gray that closely resembled the low boil of a building rage, tucked deep beneath heavy layers of pride. “You claim to love me, to accept me as I am, yet you fear me just as all your people do. The only difference is you need no fire to burn me, just the enchanting curve of your deceitful lips.” He turned away then, but Louis put a hand on his arm to halt his retreat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Harry, I--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think it is time that you leave,” Harry said quietly, each word like a separate dagger to Louis’s chest. “You have long outstayed your welcome here.” He shrugged Louis’s hand from his bicep and it fell easily, limp from the sorrow which had her hands wound tightly around his throat, vision blurring from his inability to breathe. Though he shied from Louis’s touch, it was not him who moved to put distance between them. In loaded silence they stood, Louis watching every tense muscle in his back rise and fall with each ragged breath. After some time, the fateful word left his lips. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Go</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hi besties!!! sorry to keep u waiting i kind of forgot i was writing this ..... but eventually i remembered so that's what really counts right? &lt;3 thanks for your patience if you've been waiting for this update!!!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i never thought i would write another one of these, let alone publish one. BUT LIFE IS WEIRD SOMETIMES. you can thank quarantine for locking me away, alone with my thoughts (and woodsy taylor swift albums) for this. i will post a chapter each week (as long as i can keep up that schedule) unless nobody reads this in which i will probably just forget this ever happened. but i hope someone reads it and i hope that someone enjoys it. if you've read my previous works, welcome back to my brain! i've had a (not so) brief ~hiatus~ to do a little growing up and develop my writing style. it's weird, but nice, to be back. :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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